OU Engineering

University of Oklahoma Gallogly College of Engineering professor, Robert W. Nairn, is the recipient of the prestigious William T. Plass Award from the American Society of Mining and Reclamation. Nairn pioneered wetland technologies to rehabilitate contaminated water at the Tar Creek Superfund site where he has worked for almost 20 years. The award is the highest level of recognition given by the society in the field of mined land reclamation. Nairn transformed mine reclamation work at Tar Creek—one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s top abandoned hazardous waste sites. “Professor Nairn’s scholarly work has had a huge impact in Oklahoma and around the world,” said OU President David L. Boren. “No one is more deserving of the Plass Award.” Nairn, the Viersen Family Presidential Professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and the director of the Center for Restoration of Ecosystems and Watersheds, began working to clean up Tar Creek in the late nineties. ...

Congratulations to the 2016 Gallogly College Pursuit of Excellence Award recipients! These awards were first given in 2015 to honor those who have regularly and unselfishly served our college with excellence in all they do and in motivating others. This year's recipients include Dane Schoelen (undergraduate student), Needa Virani (graduate student), Dr. Ed O'Rear (faculty) and Kristi Boren (staff). Dr. Ed O'Rear was selected for his outstanding and pioneering research in surfactant science and biomedical engineering, his award-winning excellence in teaching and research, his many years of passionate service as director of the OU Bioengineering Center and his dedicated service to both the college and the university at large, including the arts. Needa Virani was selected for her efforts as an outstanding graduate student, which she demonstrates both in the classroom and lab, as she pursues a doctorate degree in biomedical engineering with a research focus in canc...

It is the great pleasure and honor of the School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering to announce that Dr. Daniel Resasco was named the Inaugural Gallogly Chair of the Gallogly College of Engineering this September, pending Regents’ approval in October. Resasco has served as a member of the CBME faculty since August of 1993 and currently holds the titles of the Douglas and Hilda Bourne Chair and the George Lynn Cross Professor of Engineering. His list of achievements include but are not limited to more than 40 patents (the greatest number in the GCoE), more than 250 publications and an average of nearly $1 million per year in research funding for the past five years. He has served on the executive committee for the International Congress on Catalysis and as the associate editor of the Journal of Catalysis since 2001. He worked as the senior scientist at Sun Company, Inc., and is the founder of SouthWest Nanotechnologies, Inc. Resasco is the winner of numerous award...

The School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering welcomed its newest member, Keisha Walters, to the faculty starting this fall. The South Carolina native, the first of her family to graduate from college, grew up near Greenville and graduated with her B.S. degree from Clemson University. For a few years, she worked in industry as a chemist in the area of polymer additives alongside other chemists and chemical engineers in research and development labs and pilot plants before deciding to return to Clemson to complete her graduate degree. Walters originally intended to study for her master's degree, but discovered she had “a passion for creative, open-ended research and innovation.” She chose instead to get her doctorate in chemical engineering because “it was interesting, combined my interest in chemistry and polymer materials, was challenging, and would allow me to work in a large number of different fields.” She intended to return to industry once completing her Ph.D...

Late this summer, the Southwest Chemical Association named Bree Cooper the awardee of the Nicholas Chopey Scholarship at its annual Scholarship Luncheon in Houston.   The CBME Junior was the recipient of $4,000 for her essay explaining where she thinks she could make the greatest impact in the engineering industry and why her contributions would be important to the industry itself. Cooper describes herself as being, “from one of those small towns where you know everyone…it has a population of about 1,600 and I graduated with about 50 other kids.”   Her interest in STEM was ironically encouraged by a lack of upper-level math and science courses in her high school.   Feeling that she was missing out on a bigger understanding of the world, she chose to attend the Oklahoma School of Science and Math’s satellite campus her Senior year of High School in order to take the more challenging classes.    “It was an intense learning curve for me” she admits, jump...