A startup company founded by two Purdue Chemical Engineering students was awarded first place in the Burton D. Morgan Business Model Competition. Spiro Therapeutics, founded by recent ChE PhD graduate Kyle Kim and senior Davis Arick (right), won the $25,000 top award by unanimous vote, for the first time in recent history. Spiro Therapeutics provides therapeutic treatment restoring lung function to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) patients. While at Purdue, Kim was part of Professor You-Yeon Won’s research group. Purdue's Center for Entrepreneurship hosted the final presentations in late February.

Dr. Bryan Boudouris, the Robert and Sally Weist Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University, has been chosen to receive the 2018 College of Engineering Faculty Award of Excellence for Early Career Research. The award will be presented at the 16th Annual Engineering Faculty Awards of Excellence Banquet at the Ross-Ade Pavilion Shively Club on April 6, 2018.

Davidson School of Chemical Engineering undergraduate student Mary Lipari was awarded the Fall 2017 Leonard E. Wood Co-Op Scholarship. Lipari received the award during the Professional Practice Days Luncheon held in the Purdue Memorial Union on February 21.

A Purdue Chemical Engineering research team headed by Professor Linda Wang has been awarded silver prize in the 2018 Mobile World Congress Scholar Challenge for their project, Waste coal ash could provide wealth of rare earth elements.

Purdue Chemical Engineering alumnus Eleftherios (Terry) Papoutsakis (MSChE '77, PhD '80) has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for his "contributions to metabolic engineering, especially the industrial biotechnology of Clostridia, and to biomanufacturing of therapeutic proteins."