CBME Alumnae receive AIChE 35 Under 35 Award

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Ashlee Ford Versypt and Kendall Werts, OU CBME alumnae, are among the recipients of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 35 Under 35 Award.  An initiative of AIChE’s Young Professionals Committee, with support from the AIChE Foundation, the AIChE 35 Under 35 Award was created to acknowledge the early-career successes of some of AIChE’s youngest members, all under the age of 35, and to promote the accomplishments of the new generation of chemical engineers. The award winners were selected based on their achievements in one of seven categories: bioengineering, chemicals, education, energy, innovation, leadership, and safety.

Ashlee Ford Versypt, is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Oklahoma State University and a member of the OKChE Advisory Board.  Dr. Ford Versypt directs the Systems Biomedicine & Pharmaceutics research laboratory at the intersection of chemical engineering, computational science and engineering, applied mathematics, biomedical science, and pharmaceutical science.  She has advised 15 undergraduate research students and three graduate research assistants and teaches process controls, reaction engineering, and an elective on scientific computing.  In addition, she has been honored with the CEAT Excellent Teacher Award, Outstanding Poster Presentation Award, New York Academy of Sciences Symposium on Chronic Kidney Disease, and more.

Kendall Werts works in the safety and health compliance group of Linde Gas, where she ensures that all North and South American plants are compliant with regulatory and corporate safety and health programs. She is an active AIChE member and serves as a Technical Steering Committee member for the Center for Chemical Process Safety. In addition, Kendall serves as vice president and chair for the Loss Prevention Committee, where she organizes the 11a track at the Global Congress on Process Safety. Among her awards is the Linde Engineering Mentorship Program Award.

In congratulating the honorees, AIChE Executive Director June Wispelwey said, “the winners exemplify the best of our profession, and represent the breadth and diversity of chemical engineering career paths and practitioners.”

AIChE announced the recipients in the August 2017 issue of its flagship magazine Chemical Engineering Progress (CEP), and are profiled online in AIChE’s ChEnected blog (www.aiche.org/chenected).  A 35 Under 35 Award reception will be held at the 2017 AIChE Annual Meeting, October 29 – November 3, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Organizations and non-members of AIChE may purchase copies of the August 2017 issue of CEP containing the 35 Under 35 Award winners by contacting AIChE Customer Service at 800-242-4363 (outside the U.S., 203-702-7660) or customerservice@aiche.org.



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