Congratulations Jason Lachance

02/14/08: Jason W. Lachance has today defended his Masters thesis. In the words of Jason's Thesis Advisor - Professor Carolyn Koh: "It was an excellent defense presentation and discussion and an outstanding performance by the candidate. Congratulations!" Jason's thesis focused on the application of High Pressure Differential Scanning Calorimetry (HP-DSC) to infer emulsion stabilities and hydrate particle agglomeration tendencies in several crude oils. Jason's work has already attracted the interest of several leading energy companies and Low Dosage Hydrate Inhibitor (LD-HI) manufacturers and the work is expected to find applications in industry in the very near future.

Clathrate Hydrates of Natural Gases, 3rd Edition Released

Profs. Sloan and Koh have released the 3rd Edition of Clathrate Hydrates of Natural Gases. Click HERE for more information.

Sanjeev Joshi Passes the PhD Qualifying Exam

01/08/08: Sanjeev Joshi passed the PhD qualifying exam at the top of his class! The exam is a prerequisite for all PhD students and consists of six hours of written examinations and an oral presentation to the Chemical Engineering Department faculty. "Unbelievable" says Sanjeev "It's going to be fun to work with the group and I can't wait to have a Dr. before my name!"

Congratulations David Greaves

11/09/07: David Greaves has successfully defended his Masters thesis! The 189 page document deals with the effect of hydrate formation on the properties in high water cut crude oil / water emulsions. Over the past two years, David has worked with some of the worlds leading emulsion chemists in South America and Europe to combine our understanding of hydrate formation with an appreciation for the complex phenomena prevalent in emulsions.

David will be graduating in December before joining a leading energy company.

Patrick Rensing Passes His Thesis Proposal

10/04/07: After a long wait, Pat Rensing successfully defended his thesis proposal on October 4th 2007. The 63 page document summarized Patrick's proposed approach to modeling the rheology of hydrate slurries.

After a 2 hour oral examination, the 7 committee members unanimously agreed to accept the document with only minor revisions.

"I think it's great!" says Dr Laura Rovetto with a snap of her fingers, "It's about time!" Professor Carolyn Koh sums up the mood of the committee by saying "everyone was impressed with Patrick's hard work and enthusiasm; we are all excited about the potential impact of his thesis on our understanding of hydrate agglomeration".

Scott Wierzchowski Leaves for a Career in Canada

7/01/07: Dr Scott Wierzchowski has secured a job with Schlumberger in Canada. He will now be working on a new model for waxes in oil pipelines. "It's really exciting to be working on such groundbreaking software" says Scott, "I hope I can make a positive contribution to industry."

Laura Dieker nominated

4/11/07: Congratulations to Laura Dieker for being nominated as the Chemical Engineering undergraduate student employee of the year

Congratulations Dr. Arvind Gupta

2/26/07: Arvind Gupta successfully defended his Ph. D. thesis. He will now be going to work Shell in Amsterdam.

Congratulations Dr. Keith Hester

1/19/07: Keith Hester successfully defended his Ph. D. thesis. He will now be going to Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute to begin his postdoctoral research.

Welcome Dr. Scott Wierzchowski

6/01/06: Dr. Scott Wierzchowski from University of Massachusetts Amherst has joined the Center for Hydrate Research.

Welcome Dr. Hiroshi Ohno

3/27/06: Dr. Hiroshi Ohno from Hokkaido, Japan has joined the Center for Hydrate Research.

Simon Davies and Tim Strobel pass qualifying exam

1/10/06: Congratulation to Tim Strobel and Simon Davies for passing the qualifying exam. Passing this exam makes them canidates for Ph.D. in the CSM Chemical Engineering Department.

Simon Davies named best chemical engineering student of the year!

9/20/05: Simon Davies (a CSM first year Ph.D. student) won the BOC Group Award for the Best Chemical Engineering Student in the United Kingdom, judged by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (UK).

Simon Davies did his undergraduate work at the University of Loughborough, and for six months in 2004 at CSM in the hydrate group on electrical heating of hydrate plugs for flow assurance. He was given the Shell prize for his research at CSM. The award as the outstanding chemical engineering student in the U.K. was for his research done on the engineering of artificial blood for transfusions.

The Science Engineering and Technology Award is organized by the World Leadership Forum and is open to senior year students from UK universities. The award is divided into 16 categories including: Best Aeronautical Engineering Student, Best Biology & Biotechnology Student, Best Chemical Engineering Student etc with an additional award for the overall winner. The SET Awards (Science, Engineering & Technology Student of the Year) are Britain's most important awards for science and technology undergraduates. Each category is judged by the national institution for that discipline.

There is additional information on the SET awards at: http://www.setawards.org/