FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | December 01, 2014

Drexel University, Yale, Augsburg College, and University of Massachusetts Students win Competitive Green Chemistry Travel Award

WASHINGTON, December 1, 2014— Four out of 33 U.S. students have been chosen to receive the 2014 Ciba Travel Award in Green Chemistry. These students, ranging from undergraduates to doctorates, have shown significant abilities to incorporate creative green chemistry solutions into their research.

Administered by the American Chemical Society (ACS)’s Green Chemistry Institute®, the Ciba Travel Award enables students with an interest in green chemistry to travel to an ACS scientific conference with a specific green chemistry component. The students will have opportunities to expand their education by attending symposia, networking and presenting their research. This year’s awardees’ research areas include green chemistry and engineering, environmental science, polymers and renewable materials.

The winners:

Boris Dyatkin, from Montgomery, Pennsylvania, is a Ph.D. candidate at Drexel University studying materials science and engineering. He will be presenting research on an environmentally friendly supercapacitor composed entirely of “green” materials and dual-intercalation, all-graphite batteries for grid storage applications at the 250th ACS National Meeting, August 16-18, 2015, in Boston.

Laurene Petitjean is a first year doctoral student from France studying in the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale University. Petitjean is a part of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She plans to attend the 19th Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in North Bethesda, Md., July 14-16, 2015 to present her research on “Lignin Valorization: The Catalytic Reduction of Lignin Model Compounds.”

Zach Swingen, from Black Earth, Wisconsin, is an undergraduate student studying organic chemistry at Augsburg College. He will be presenting his research on green synthesis of sustainable tri-block copolymers at the 19th Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in North Bethesda, Md., July 14-16, 2015.

Zarif Farhana Mohd Aris is a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts - Lowell studying plastics engineering. She plans to attend the 249th ACS National Meeting, March 22-26, 2015, in Denver and present her research on surfactants from renewable materials.

The Ciba Travel Award in Green Chemistry was established in 2009 and is awarded annually. The award covers up to $2,000 of each awardee’s travel and conference expenses.

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The ACS Green Chemistry Institute® is an impartial, scientific convener promoting the implementation of green chemistry and engineering across the global chemical enterprise. The Institute empowers people to reimagine chemistry and engineering for a sustainable future by offering educational resources, training and development opportunities for students, educators and researchers, and by convening industrial roundtables to promote industry collaboration around green chemistry issues. A part of the American Chemical Society, the Institute holds an annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference (gcande.org), the longest running conference on green chemistry in the country.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Media Contact

Christiana Briddell
202-430-2037
c_briddell@acs.org

Boris Dyatkin
Laurene Petitjean
Zach Swingen
Zarif Farhana Mohd Aris