Meet AIChE’s Recently Elected Fellows

Ara Barsamian is President of the Refinery Automation Institute, LLC, a fuel blending consulting company. He was previously Vice President at ABB Simcon and President at 3X Corp., with expertise in advanced fuels blending technology. At Exxon Research and Engineering Co., he helped to develop early distributed control systems, and later participated in developing IBM’s advanced process control system, which was eventually used in the refining industry worldwide. He also pioneered the use of neural networks for inferential property predictors and genetic algorithms for gasoline blending optimization. He supports the future profession through mentorship and scholarships.

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Lisa Bullard is Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor and Director of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Undergraduate Studies at North Carolina State Univ., where her research concentrates on educational scholarship. Her focus areas include teaching and advising effectiveness, academic integrity, process design instruction, and organizational culture. Prior to joining academia, she held engineering and management roles at Eastman Chemical Co. She is past chair of the Chemical Engineering Div. of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and is Assistant Editor of Chemical Engineering Education. She is co-author of Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes (4th edition).

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Stephanie Farrell is Professor and Founding Head of the Dept. of Experiential Engineering Education at Rowan Univ. She joined Rowan as a founding faculty member of the Chemical Engineering Dept. in 1998. She also served as Interim Dean of Rowan’s Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering (2019–2021) and as President of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE; 2018–2019). Within AIChE, she is a founding member of the LGBTQ+ & Allies Committee and served as a student chapter advisor. She received the 2020 Award for Service to Chemical Engineering Education from AIChE’s Education Div.

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Anne M. Grillet is a distinguished technical staff member at Sandia National Lab’s Engineering Sciences Center. She applies computational and experimental rheological techniques to a variety of complex-materials applications. Her work has advanced the understanding of battery performance, structure-function relationships in particle suspensions, and the manufacturing and aging of polymer gel systems. Her technical collaborations span Sandia’s work in materials science, the geosciences, energy, explosives, and nuclear deterrence. An advocate for women in engineering and science, she is also a leader of AIChE’s Women in Chemical Engineering Committee (WIC).

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Balaji Narasimhan is Distinguished Professor at Iowa State Univ., where his research at the intersection of materials chemistry, nanotechnology, and medicine focuses on the molecular design of nanoparticle-based technologies to prevent and treat disease. His work with novel biodegradable pathogen-mimicking nanoparticles has helped create a paradigm shift in vaccine design, leading to new vaccines for a breadth of respiratory infections, as well as Trojan Horse nanomedicines for drug-resistant tuberculosis and neurodegenerative disease. He has also advanced the education of Hispanic-origin students by creating a research program in collaboration with Tecnológico de Monterrey.

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Bruce K. Vaughen is Lead Process Safety Subject Matter Expert in AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS). He has nearly three decades of experience in process-safety-related research, engineering, auditing, teaching, and consulting. His contributions include principal authorship of three CCPS Guideline books and creation of courses in the AIChE Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative (UPSLI) and Safety in Chemical Engineering Education (SAChE) online certificate programs. He has published numerous articles and has contributed extensively to AIChE and CCPS meeting programming. He has also been active in the Safety and Health Div. (Photo credit: Larry Kanfer)

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