March 2021
It’s the start of the new semester come 1st March 2021. As we look back on the challenging year that was 2020, we hope that we have become more resilient and will adjust to 2021 well. We have an almost double the number of students wanting to do Chemmat this year, and we are truly pleased welcome the new cohort. This year is also the year our degree undergoes the periodic accreditation exercise carried out by both Engineering New Zealand and the Institute of Chemical Engineers (UK), so staff will be busy preparing for this important process.
Our department also has renewed our deputy heads. Outgoing, after a significant amount of time served, are Associate Professors Mark Jones and Peng Cao. They served as Deputy Heads Research and Academic respectively. Incoming are Associate Professors Saeid Baroutian and Meng Wai Woo (aka Wai), serving as Research and Academic deputy HoDs respectively. We have also some new members of staff and we will try to run features when we can on these new personnel. In this issue for example Nadeen tells us about her personal journey to this point where she has joined us as a Professional Teaching Fellow this year. We have also introduced in this issue a new segment on recent PhD completions, as we celebrate the great work done by our very talented PhD students.
All the best to all our readers for the year and we will continue to bring you the best of Chemmat as we progress through 2021.
Best Wishes,
Ashvin Thambyah
Professor & Head of Department
Chemical & Materials Engineering
Checkout the Chemmat Gold Fund – The fund has been established to help create an inspirational learning and research environment designed to prepare our engineers of the future, for the future.
CHEMMAT PhD Student Update: Completed Theses
PhD student: Yixuan (Jenifer) Wang, Supervisors: Wei Gao & Filicia Wicaksana Electrospun Silicon Oxycarbide (SiOC) Fibre Mats and Its Composites Abstract: This work presents the preparation of ultrafine SiOC fibre mats through the electrospinning/sol-gel method,...
CHEMMAT’s Part-3 Team Project: The Alternative Fuel Vehicle
Photo: CHEMMAT’s Dr Andrea Kolb, Professional Teaching Fellow The Alternative Fuel Vehicle (AFV) team project is part of an elective for our Part III students and discusses the energy sector’s future. The project spans the entire semester and...
New CHEMMAT staff: Nadeen Papali’i, Professional Teaching Fellow
Photo: CHEMMAT’s new Professional Teaching Fellow, Nadeen Papali’i Welcome to CHEMMAT, Nadeen! Thanks for writing such a wonderful, inspiring introduction: “Tālofa my name is Nadeen Lanuola Papali’i and I have joined the CHEMMAT department as...
CHEMMAT’s Adjunct Professor Rob Kirkpatrick’s article in “The Chemical Engineer”
Photo: CHEMMAT’s Adjunct Professor Rob Kirkpatrick Read the full...
Excellent Part-4 Research Output during the Pandemic
Photo from left: CHEMMAT’s Part 4 team – Swashna Lal, Tharushi Wijesinha, Dr Amar Auckaili, Michelle Lu, and Omar Mustafa Regardless of restrictions from COVID-19 in 2020, our Part-4 students would have been able to adapt their projects accordingly...
Collaboration with the Māori Community of East Cape
Photo: Kānuka forest Whareponga, East Cape CHEMMAT’s Associate Professor Saeid Baroutian, his family, CHEMMAT’s Dr Xing Xin, Dr Sinemobong Essien and a team from the Office of Pro-Vice-Chancellor Māori (Mike Steedman- Kaiarataki), Uniservices (Dr Andy...
New Master of Engineering Studies – Sustainable Resource Recovery
Photo: CHEMMAT’s Dr Sinemobong Essien We are excited to announce our newest Master of Engineering Studies, Sustainable Resource Recovery has officially started. Resource limitation is a global problem and Sustainable Resource Recovery addresses this...
CHEMMAT’s first webinar guest: Prof Amanda Ellis, University of Melbourne
Photo: Prof Amanda Ellis, Head of Department for Chemical Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia On 5 November 2020, CHEMMAT PhD students and staff connected remotely with Prof Amanda Ellis for our first lunchtime webinar. As well as giving us...
Alumni News
Jenny Purdie, CHEMMAT ca. 1986, PhD ca. 1993 BHP appoints new asset president for Olympic Dam mega-mine 4 February 2021 BHP said Dr Purdie: “has more than 30 years of global management and leadership experience spanning operational, business improvement and...
News from Canada – Sina Sheikholeslami, CHEMMAT PhD student
Photo: Sina Sheikholeslami, CHEMMAT PhD student We recently emailed Sina to see how he was doing in Canada. He kindly supplied us with the following article, which we found very interesting and also inspiring for our PhD students. Thank you, Sina and...
December message – Head of Department
December 2020 This is our fourth and final Quarterly Chemmat Knit issue for the year. There’s quite a lot to report and update and I encourage you to please get in touch with us to find out more about any of the items of interest. Please also forward this...
Chemmat PhD candidate wins award
The Academic Career Advancement Programme (ACAP) gives mid-phase doctoral candidates a head-start in their academic future. The ACAP (formally DALI) presents a series of regular seminars over two semesters, with a focus on careers in academia, teaching, and research....
21st century solutions to 20th century problems
Congratulations Amanda and Matt on the recent arrival of your baby boy, Nathan Edward, in July.
How high-tech recycling could stop waste batteries becoming the next plastic crisis
To celebrate Recycling Week, Vanessa Young, Strategic Engagement Manager from The MacDiarmid Institute, explains the essential role of nano-recycling in making the most of the tiny-scale but potentially harmful waste from batteries, circuit boards and more. For most...
Chemmat’s Postgraduate Symposium
Each year the department holds a Research Showcase where PhD students have the opportunity to disseminate their research, and showcase the breadth of research across all areas of chemical and materials engineering. The showcase is a mixture of oral and poster...
U21 graduate collaborative research awarded to Chemmat PhD candidate
Photo: Chemmat’s PhD candidate, Syeda Wishal Bokhari U21’s Graduate Collaborative Research Awards (GCRA) are designed to be flexible and encourage doctoral candidates, with the support of their supervisors/advisors, to think innovatively about how...
In conversation with IChemE’s President and Deputy President
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvbbpApkwfs&list=PL4HzhwJDIG9KJB5rxR3HHHXmHiopAbfW1 The value of membership and Chartered status In their first video of their ‘In Conversation’ series, IChemE President, Stephen Richardson and Deputy President, Jane...
Chemmat scores two top teacher awards
From Left: Chemmat’s Dr Steve Matthews, Dr Amar Auckaili Congratulations to Chemmat’s Dr Steve Matthews and Dr Amar Auckaili who both won a Students’ Choice Top Teacher Award each this year. These were announced by our Acting Dean, Prof Gerard Rowe...
Chemmat Postgraduate Dinner
About 70 students and staff gathered for dinner at the Bodrum Newmarket restaurant on the evening of Thursday, 9 December. It was a fun and relaxing night, and it was a nice treat for our Postgraduate students who have, like everyone, found 2020 very challenging. We...
Will cell-based meat ever be a dinner staple? (Department’s Dr Laura Domigan mentioned in article in Nature)
Laboratory-grown meat has been stuck in the experimental stage. For it to become a commercially viable industry, tissue needs to be grown efficiently at scale. When Laura Domigan started her research group at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 2015, she hoped...
CMESA’s AGM
CMESA (Chemical & Materials Engineering Students’ Association) recently held its Annual General Meeting. The incumbent Matthew Oei (on the far right of the picture) was voted to remain as President for 2021. The other nominees, who all competed strongly and...
Chemmat’s Graduation
We were lucky to have an in-person graduation ceremony on the 4th of November, held at the Spark Arena. Feedback from students and family was that they were highly appreciative of the university organising this event during this tricky year of lockdowns and high...
Ideas wanted for industry-related projects
At our recent Chemmat Industry Advisory Board meeting, one of the items discussed was the idea of exploring the possibility of having some Part IV projects done collaboratively with our industry friends. Our board members were keen to explore how industry folk could...
The Class of ’85
It was a real pleasure to host the Chemmat class of ’85 on 16 October when we gave them a lab tour of our new facilities. We were truly impressed by how this group has been able to stay in touch and motivated to meet up after all these years. Such an alumni...
2020 4th Year undergraduates’ – Annual Dinner
We were fortunate to be able to go ahead with the annual 4th year or final year undegrad dinner. This event is a popular one that everyone looks forward to every year, giving the opportunity to the students to celebrate the end of their undergrad studies. Guest...
October message – Head of Department
October message In these troubled times the challenges the world faces require, more than ever, the solutions from chemical and materials engineers. Whether it is about discovering novel ways to detect quickly the presence of a virus, developing technology...
IChemE Safety Centre – Lessons from Regulators
IChemE’s Safety Centre Director Trish Kerin discusses key lessons with two former regulators. Dame Judith Hackitt was the Chair of the UK Health and Safety Executive and is also involved in advising Governments in UK and in Australia on reform of Building Safety...
Way to go, Wei!
In June 2020 it was announced that Chemmat’s Professor Wei Gao had been awarded The Vice-Chancellor’s Commercialisation Medal as part of the University of Auckland 2020 Research Excellence Awards. From the UoA website: Professor Wei Gao from Chemical and...
Innovative solutions in response to COVID-19
In May 2020, $25M for innovative solutions in response to COVID-19 was announced by the government. $110K was awarded to Chemmat’s Associate Professor Ashton Partridge’s company Digital Sensing Ltd. The name of their project for testing for COVID-19, is...
April message – Head of Department
April 2020 On Monday 30 March 2020, the University began full online teaching to provide some sense of business continuity amidst the nationwide Alert Level 4 lockdown. As staff scrambled to prepare, students were understandably anxious on how the following...
Chemmat alumni James Woolner
An interview with Chemmat alumni James Woolner who is presently living in The Netherlands: In 2018 I decided to do what every Kiwi seems to do in their career, move to Europe. Being a UK national and therefore having EU citizenship, I thought it would be more...
CMESA news
Update from Matthew Oei, President, CMESA: Despite the challenges of lockdown, we put together two events, as well as a wellness post for the University’s Mental Health Day on 5 May 2020. We had a Kahoot quiz that had a $50 prize pack and a TikTok...
Winner of the best Zoom background and dress-up award…
… goes to Chemmat Professional Teaching Fellow, Dr Pablo German (on the left. On the right is Chemmat’s Head of Department Assoc Prof Ashvin Thambyah).
UV industry associations discourage the use of UV light on the human body to disinfect against the coronavirus
Please see below from Prof Mohd Farid, Member of the International Ultraviolet Association (IUVA) Download PDF of Press Release Chevy Chase, MD, USA (April 24, 2020) Recent reports suggest that ultraviolet (UV) light can be used on the human body...
Chemmat’s Industry Advisory Board meet on Zoom
Chaired by Adrian Dickison, Chemmat’s Industry Advisory Board meet quarterly. The board includes both Chemmat students and alumni who now work in the industry.
MBIE funding update – Prof Mohammed Farid
Chemmat’s Professor Mohammed Farid has three MBIE-funded projects. Listed below, the first two have already been contracted, and the third one should be contracted very soon. Title: Quality and safety assurance for high value cold-smoked or...
UV and fast cooling of milk
Watch the two video recordings that have recently been released for the UV and fast cooling of...
Key Auckland leadership in IChemE’s learned society digitalisation priority topic
Climate Change, Hazards and Digitalisation Digitalisation is one of the three priority topics for IChemE (Institution of Chemical Engineers UK) learned society. IChemE needs to understand how the development of digital technologies will change the profession, and...
New biosector careers profiles launched
A new collection of chemical engineering career profiles has been launched by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) to inspire the next generation into a prosperous career in the bioeconomy. Showcasing how chemical engineers in this emerging sector are...
Chemmat Careers Evening
Chemmat’s Careers Evening was held on the evening of Thursday, 30 July at the Sir Owen Glenn building where past Chemmat graduates shared their rich experiences from their own journeys in their respective fields and presented on their career development after...
Steve Strover
With sadness we received the news on 9 April 2020 that a long-serving technician in our department, Steve Strover, passed away following a prolonged illness. Steve began his career with our department way back in 1986, bringing his skills in metallography, microscopy...
Life on Zoom
Staff-Student Consultative Committee Meeting – 3 April 2020 Friday drinks with the...
February message – Head of Department
February 2020 A brand new year, a brand new building – a brand new virus! Yikes! It’s been a start to 2020 with mixed feelings. The move to the new Engineering Building is complete, staff and students have been reinvigorated. Everyone’s...
AAEE summer school
Photo: Facilitators and participants in the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) 2020 summer school at Waikato Institute of Technology in Hamilton. From left to right: Amar Auckaili (UoA), Andrea Kolb (UoA), Pablo German (UoA), Lorenzo Garcia...
CMESA on Instagram
CMESA (Chemical & Materials Engineering Students Association) has a new Instagram page for announcing their social events, including “Isolation Challenges.” Follow them or check out their page: https://www.instagram.com/cmesa.uoa/ ...
Chemmat’s Industry Advisory Board seeks new Members
We are currently seeking Expressions of Interest for new Members to join the Chemmat Industry Advisory Board. The role of the Board is to guide and support the Department to develop engineers that are: • Capable of dealing with complexity, diversity and change;...
The Roof of the Future
F-Wave LLC has introduced its REVIA Hybrid solar roof tiles. F-Wave’s new tiles harvest both photovoltaic and thermal energy. The company’s Hybrid tiles are up to 40% efficient, doubling the efficiency of traditional glass solar panels. The energy generated mirrors...
November Message – Head of Department
The Chemmat Knit – Newsletter November 2019 The year is coming to an end, and this will be the last newsletter for 2019. It has been a busy last few months and we have quite a bit to report. While you do check out this edition, I would draw your attention to...
IChemE Project Winners
Photo (from left), Chemmat’s Head of Department Assoc Prof Ashvin Thambyah, Final Year Undergraduate students Michael Kim and Victoria Pickett, Chemmat’s Senior Lecturer Dr Saeid Baroutian Last year the Society of Materials NZ (SMNZI) and IChemE...
Dr Shan Yi’s Trip To China
Photo: Chemmat’s Lecturer, Dr Shan Yi (Shan is standing in the centre, wearing a pink top) Dr Shan Yi is our new Lecturer who joined Chemmat last November. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in biochemical engineering, she got her PhD degree...
Water & Wastewater Treatment Symposium
Photo: Water and Wastewater Treatment Symposium speakers and participants On November 11 2019, our department successfully held our first Water Symposium, with the theme “Water and Wastewater Treatment: Advanced Processing and Membrane...
The 70th Anniversary of P R China
At the end of last year, Chemmat’s Prof Wei Gao was invited to attend the Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of P R China. We love the photo, Wei!
Prof Wei Gao’s Recent Achievements
Chemmat congratulates Professor Wei Gao for receiving the award of “Innovation for a Better World” from the University of Auckland and Auckland UniServices, November 2019 in Hangzhou. Wei was also awarded a Standard Marsden 2020 project “Controlled magnetic...
Resource Recovery Workshop
The 2nd International Workshop on ‘Resource Recovery from Biobased Production Processes’ was held in the Newmarket Campus on 12 November 2019. The workshop was jointly organised by Dr Saeid Baroutian, Prof Brent Young and together with the Technical...
Chemmat Beer Tasting
Chemmat staff and students gathered late last year for our Annual Beer Tasting for Students vs Staff. The competition was won by Chemmat Staff. Congratulations to our Senior Technicians Ray Hoffman and Peter Martin, whose names have been added to the “Chemmat...
Dr Saeid Baroutian’s Trip To China
Photo (from left): Drs Kiri Dell (Ngāti Porou) – Faculty of Business & Economics, Chemmat’s Saeid Baroutian Chemmat’s Dr Saeid Baroutian was invited to present his research on “Hydrothermal Deconstruction: Busting Waste with...
Finalist For Callaghan C-Prize
Photo: Team members (from the left): Chemmat’s Professor Mohammed Farid, PhD Candidates – Gohar Gholami, Misagh Ebrahimpour Over 140 teams participated in the Callaghan C-Prize competition and our team (SES: Smart Energy Storage) was amongst the 10...
CHEMMAT PhD Student Update: Completed Theses
PhD student: Yixuan (Jenifer) Wang, Supervisors: Wei Gao & Filicia Wicaksana Electrospun Silicon Oxycarbide (SiOC) Fibre Mats and Its Composites Abstract: This work presents the preparation of ultrafine SiOC fibre mats through the electrospinning/sol-gel method,...
News from Canada – Sina Sheikholeslami, CHEMMAT PhD student
Photo: Sina Sheikholeslami, CHEMMAT PhD student We recently emailed Sina to see how he was doing in Canada. He kindly supplied us with the following article, which we found very interesting and also inspiring for our PhD students. Thank you, Sina and...
December message – Head of Department
December 2020 This is our fourth and final Quarterly Chemmat Knit issue for the year. There’s quite a lot to report and update and I encourage you to please get in touch with us to find out more about any of the items of interest. Please also forward this...
Chemmat PhD candidate wins award
The Academic Career Advancement Programme (ACAP) gives mid-phase doctoral candidates a head-start in their academic future. The ACAP (formally DALI) presents a series of regular seminars over two semesters, with a focus on careers in academia, teaching, and research....
21st century solutions to 20th century problems
Congratulations Amanda and Matt on the recent arrival of your baby boy, Nathan Edward, in July.
How high-tech recycling could stop waste batteries becoming the next plastic crisis
To celebrate Recycling Week, Vanessa Young, Strategic Engagement Manager from The MacDiarmid Institute, explains the essential role of nano-recycling in making the most of the tiny-scale but potentially harmful waste from batteries, circuit boards and more. For most...
Chemmat’s Postgraduate Symposium
Each year the department holds a Research Showcase where PhD students have the opportunity to disseminate their research, and showcase the breadth of research across all areas of chemical and materials engineering. The showcase is a mixture of oral and poster...
U21 graduate collaborative research awarded to Chemmat PhD candidate
Photo: Chemmat’s PhD candidate, Syeda Wishal Bokhari U21’s Graduate Collaborative Research Awards (GCRA) are designed to be flexible and encourage doctoral candidates, with the support of their supervisors/advisors, to think innovatively about how...
In conversation with IChemE’s President and Deputy President
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvbbpApkwfs&list=PL4HzhwJDIG9KJB5rxR3HHHXmHiopAbfW1 The value of membership and Chartered status In their first video of their ‘In Conversation’ series, IChemE President, Stephen Richardson and Deputy President, Jane...
Chemmat scores two top teacher awards
From Left: Chemmat’s Dr Steve Matthews, Dr Amar Auckaili Congratulations to Chemmat’s Dr Steve Matthews and Dr Amar Auckaili who both won a Students’ Choice Top Teacher Award each this year. These were announced by our Acting Dean, Prof Gerard Rowe...
Chemmat Postgraduate Dinner
About 70 students and staff gathered for dinner at the Bodrum Newmarket restaurant on the evening of Thursday, 9 December. It was a fun and relaxing night, and it was a nice treat for our Postgraduate students who have, like everyone, found 2020 very challenging. We...
News from Canada – Sina Sheikholeslami, CHEMMAT PhD student
Photo: Sina Sheikholeslami, CHEMMAT PhD student We recently emailed Sina to see how he was doing in Canada. He kindly supplied us with the following article, which we found very interesting and also inspiring for our PhD students. Thank you, Sina and...
December message – Head of Department
December 2020 This is our fourth and final Quarterly Chemmat Knit issue for the year. There’s quite a lot to report and update and I encourage you to please get in touch with us to find out more about any of the items of interest. Please also forward this...
Chemmat PhD candidate wins award
The Academic Career Advancement Programme (ACAP) gives mid-phase doctoral candidates a head-start in their academic future. The ACAP (formally DALI) presents a series of regular seminars over two semesters, with a focus on careers in academia, teaching, and research....
21st century solutions to 20th century problems
Congratulations Amanda and Matt on the recent arrival of your baby boy, Nathan Edward, in July.
How high-tech recycling could stop waste batteries becoming the next plastic crisis
To celebrate Recycling Week, Vanessa Young, Strategic Engagement Manager from The MacDiarmid Institute, explains the essential role of nano-recycling in making the most of the tiny-scale but potentially harmful waste from batteries, circuit boards and more. For most...
Chemmat’s Postgraduate Symposium
Each year the department holds a Research Showcase where PhD students have the opportunity to disseminate their research, and showcase the breadth of research across all areas of chemical and materials engineering. The showcase is a mixture of oral and poster...
U21 graduate collaborative research awarded to Chemmat PhD candidate
Photo: Chemmat’s PhD candidate, Syeda Wishal Bokhari U21’s Graduate Collaborative Research Awards (GCRA) are designed to be flexible and encourage doctoral candidates, with the support of their supervisors/advisors, to think innovatively about how...
In conversation with IChemE’s President and Deputy President
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvbbpApkwfs&list=PL4HzhwJDIG9KJB5rxR3HHHXmHiopAbfW1 The value of membership and Chartered status In their first video of their ‘In Conversation’ series, IChemE President, Stephen Richardson and Deputy President, Jane...
Chemmat scores two top teacher awards
From Left: Chemmat’s Dr Steve Matthews, Dr Amar Auckaili Congratulations to Chemmat’s Dr Steve Matthews and Dr Amar Auckaili who both won a Students’ Choice Top Teacher Award each this year. These were announced by our Acting Dean, Prof Gerard Rowe...
Chemmat Postgraduate Dinner
About 70 students and staff gathered for dinner at the Bodrum Newmarket restaurant on the evening of Thursday, 9 December. It was a fun and relaxing night, and it was a nice treat for our Postgraduate students who have, like everyone, found 2020 very challenging. We...