Chemical and Environmental Engineering News

Dr. Margaret Kupferle has retired after serving the Environmental Engineering Program for 42 years -- 20 years as a researcher and EPA contractor and later as faculty for 22 years, including 10 years as ENVE Program Chair and 5 years as Associate ChEE Department Head. She joined the ranks of Emeriti faculty in January 2025.

Dr. Kupferle’s career, spanning 50+ years of changes in the Environmental Engineering field, was originally inspired in 1973 by a high school class visit to the then newly formed USEPA labs here in Cincinnati followed by a Chemical Engineering freshman project in water pollution and a co-op job with Procter & Gamble’s Environmental Safety Department as an undergraduate at Purdue University. These early experiences led to a lifelong love of water with a passion for remediating hazardous materials polluting our environment.

After completing an MS in Environmental Engineering at Purdue, Dr. Kupferle began her career at UC in 1982 with a “temporary” job as a Research Assistant involved in pilot-scale solid waste research with Drs. Riley Kinman and Janet Rickenbaugh. This led to UC contract management roles at the USEPA Test & Evaluation Facility (1984-1989), on UC-USEPA cooperative agreement projects (1989-1997), and at the USEPA Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center (1997-2004). Along the way, Dr. Kupferle was persuaded to pursue her Ph.D. part-time as she continued to work full-time, finishing under Dr. Paul Bishop in 2002. She joined the research faculty at that time and then went on to join the tenure-track faculty in 2004. She has developed and taught 18 different engineering courses during her tenure and has been named as a CEAS Master Educator three times. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and has conducted research in both waste treatment and engineering education areas. Several of her graduate students have been recognized at the state and national level with awards including the USEPA STAR grant.

She has served UC students, the program, department, college and university in many roles and has been heavily involved in faculty recruiting, undergraduate recruiting, and laboratory quality assurance and safety through the years.  We wish to thank Dr. Kupferle for her service and we wish her well as she pursues her love of travel and learning in retirement. 

The American Chemical Society’s Division of Environmental Chemistry has recently established the Dionysios Dionysiou Established Investigator Award to honor our ENVE faculty member and former division chair, Professor Dionysios “Dion” Dionysiou. Dr. Dionysiou, who passed away in 2023, was a pioneer in developing innovative drinking water treatment technologies and advanced wastewater remediation methods. According to Professor Alex Orlov of SUNY Stony Brook, this new award will be the second most prestigious environmental honor within the ACS and the only one administered by the Society specifically for mid-career to senior researchers. It will recognize sustained and distinguished contributions to environmental chemistry by investigators with 10–30 years of experience beyond their graduate and postdoctoral training—a fitting tribute to Dr. Dionysiou’s legacy of innovation, leadership, and impact.

Dr. Mingming Lu received the Lyman A. Ripperton Environmental Educator Award at the Air and Waste Management Annual Conference held in Raleigh, NC, this June. This prestigious award honors individuals who inspire students to excel in both their professional and personal endeavors, and it recognizes a rare ability to teach with rigor, humor, humility, and pride.  Dr. Lu’s career exemplifies these qualities. She brings a deep passion for teaching, sustainability, and student mentoring to every aspect of her work. Over the years, she has taught 16 different courses spanning the full academic spectrum—from freshman lectures to graduate seminars, from laboratory instruction to study-abroad experiences. She has guided 37 Ph.D. and M.S. students through their research and has mentored an additional 38 undergraduate students, fostering growth, curiosity, and achievement at every level. 

The newly renovated Old Chemistry Building—an impressive $190 million project—will open its doors this fall. Serving as a cornerstone for the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the facility will house many of CEAS’s state-of-the-art laboratory spaces. This transformation preserves the historic character of the building while equipping it with modern infrastructure to support cutting-edge research, hands-on learning, and collaborative innovation for generations to come. 

The fourth annual CEAS EXPO was held on Tuesday, April 8, at the Fifth Third Arena. Over 200 capstone groups from CEAS showcased the projects they had been working on over the past year. The following ChE teams received awards from the external judges from the Ohio Valley Section of Chemical Engineers. 

AlChE Ohio Valley Section Capstone Awards

• First Place: Production of Medical-Grade Epinephrine by Fermentation Using Genetically Modified Escherichia coli
  • Team members: Dawson Drouhard, Aubrey Koon, Matt Olson, Gino Santillo, Paolo Zichella
• Second Place: Chemical Recycling Cotton and Polyester Blended Fabric
  • Team members: Han Tran, Anna Klear, Rebecca Ramirez, Leah Dillon, Rylie Cayce
• Third Place: Conversion of Waste Trap Grease to Biodiesel   
  • Team members: Matt Camp, Tyler Fremon, Erik Martin, Ethan Molnar, Aiden Poe

CEAS EXPO Posterboard 3rd Place: 

• Comparative Analysis of Soil Amendments
  • Team members: Corrina Borchers, Alyssa Coriell, Kelsey Kauflin, Claire Stech   

An Environmental Engineering Senior Capstone Design team (Stormwater Reuse at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden) won the state-wide 2025 Ohio Water Environment Association Student Design Competition. The winning team members were Lizzie Clingan, Kell Geisler, and Allison Reynolds. The team’s excellent work and dedication were evident in their outstanding presentation delivered to the panel of judges. Their accomplishment was recently featured in the OWEA Buckeye Bulletin Magazine. As a winning team in this competition, each student received a $1,000 award as well as an all-expenses-paid trip to attend and present at the Ohio One Water Technical Conference this month in Cleveland. The team will also represent Ohio at the WEF Student Design Competition at WEFTEC in October 2025 in Chicago. The team would like to recognize Dr. Drew McAvoy (Capstone Advisor) for his guidance on this project and Mark Fisher (Cincinnati Zoo) for sponsoring and providing guidance on the project.

In the spring, UC Chemical Engineering student Emily Smith, was recognized for her achievement in cooperative education by the University of Cincinnati’s College of Cooperative Education and Professional Studies. This honor was bestowed as a result of her outstanding achievement in cooperative education in the College of Engineering and Applied Science in 2024-2025. Emily has completed co-op rotations with Mane, Nestlé, and Dow Chemical. During her three terms at Dow, she led manufacturing projects that improved operational efficiency, enhanced safety for plant operators, and reduced workplace hazards. While at Nestlé, she designed and implemented two technical trial protocols that are projected to eliminate 20 metric tons of plastic use each year. 

PhD student Zixi Fan from the Niu Group has been selected as a 2025 Ellen Gonter Graduate Student Research Paper Awardee. This prestigious award is the highest honor granted to students by the American Chemical Society Division of Environmental Chemistry and was awarded for his paper entitled, “Micelle-Mediated C-F Bond Activation by Hydrated Electron for Efficient PFAS Mineralization."  As part of this recognition, Zixi will be invited to present at the C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Awards Symposium at the Fall ACS Meeting in Washington, DC. Additionally, the award includes a monetary prize to support travel expenses.