Department Personnel
Distinguished Professor Darrell Velegol | News
10/03/14
Distinguished Professor Darrell Velegol participates in an international conference
Darrell Velegol, distinguished professor of chemical engineering, and Jack Matson, professor emeritus of environmental engineering, were part of a two-day conference held on September 18 and 19 in Lorient, France.
The conference was sponsored by the Economic Perspectives & International Cooperation Congress (EPICC) with the intention strengthen the French economy.
Matson and Velegol discussed material from their massive open online course (MOOC) titled "Creativity, Innovation, and Change." Since 2013, more than 200,000 people from 190 countries have taken the course.
Velegol and Matson hope to instill in their audience that the willingness to fail is essential for learning and creativity, and so the best way to do it is intelligently and quickly and to understand that creativity, innovation and change is a process that can be learned and practiced.
View the entire story, "Matson, Velegol to talk creativity, innovation and change at French conference" on the Penn State News website.
12/16/13
Chemical Engineering student team wins 1st place
in the DOW Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award
Team members from left to right: Hasin Feroz, Rajarshi Guha, Abhishek Kar, and Yuxi Meng.
A team of students including Chemical Engineering graduate students won first place in the DOW Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award (SISCA) competition.
The team is comprised of members with diverse backgrounds, including graduate students Abhishek Kar, Rajarshi Guha, Yuxi Meng, and Hasin Feroz who were advised by Assistant Professor Manish Kumar and Distinguished Professor Darrell Velegol.
The team's proprosal, "Sustainable Desalination and Water Recycling Using Chemical Micropumps in Membrane Systems" earned them $10,000, which they plan to use to develop their research into a viable solution for water treatment in developing nations.
Congratulations on this achievement.
View the story "Water research makes waves in annual graduate student sustainability challenge" on the Penn State News website.
11/20/13
Distinguished Professor Darrell Velegol Teaching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
Penn State Chemical Engineering faculty member Darrell Velegol joins other Penn State faculty to teach "Creativity, Innovation and Change", a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) offered by Coursera.
The course was developed by Jack V. Matson, professor emeritus of Environmental Engineering at Penn State, who is aided by Darrell Velegol (Chemical Engineering) and Kathryn W. Jablokow, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Design.
MOOCs are open to anyone world wide and most are free. The "Creativity, Innovation and Change" MOOC dr. Velegol is teaching has over 120,000 students enrolled, with over 70 percent from countries outside the United States.
Dr. Mastson explains that the "Creativity, Innovation and Change" MOOC is designed to, "help people understand they truly do have latent creative potential, and will teach them how to use their creative ideas effectively".
View the Penn State News article "Penn State MOOC explores the science of creativity" for more information about this new learning opportunity.
09/24/13
Darrell Velegol a member of the 2013 Homecoming Court
Distinguished Professor Darrell Velegol has been selected as a member of the 2013 Penn State Homecoming Court.
Darrell is the 2nd member of our faculty to be so honored — Enrique Gomez was on the Court in 2011. View photos from the 2011 Homecoming Court.
View the entire story on "The Daily Collegian", the website for the student run newspaper.
Penn State's 2013 Homecoming is on October 5th - October 12th. Information about homecoming events can be found on homecoming.psu.edu and alumni.psu.edu/events/homecoming.
Caption: dr. Darrell Velegol wearing his Penn State Homecoming crown, sceptre, and sash.
09/06/13
Chemical Engineering August 2013 (PAWS) Student of the month
Astha Garg of the Darrell Velegol Research Group received the PAWS (Prevent Accidents With Safety) Student of the Month Award for August 2013.
"Since joining the lab last October, she has been very vigilant and active regarding general safety in the lab. She has taken the ownership of ensuring safety is the foremost criteria in all our lab activities".
Astha will receive a $25 gift card to a local business of her choice.
Congratulations Astha.
05/6/13
Graduate student Abhishek Kar is the Chemical Engineering
"Prevent Accidents With Safety" (PAWS) April Student of the month
Congratulations to graduate student Abhishek Kar of the Darrell Velegol Research Group who received the PAWS (Prevent Accidents With Safety) Student of the Month Award for April 2013.
"Abhishek is always proactive in taking and implementing safety decisions, which inspires us to take safety measures in whatever we perform in our lab", a nominator said.
Abhishek will receive a $25 gift card to a local business of his choice.
Congratulations Abhishek.
03/13/12
Darrell Velegol appointed as a Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Darrell Velegol has been appointed as a Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.
The title of Distinguished Professor is given to a select group of faculty in each College who are "acknowledged leaders in their fields of research or creative activity", who "have demonstrated significant leadership in raising the standards of the University with respect to teaching, research or creative activity, and service," and who "have demonstrated excellent teaching skills and contributed significantly to the education of students who subsequently have achieved recognition of excellence in their fields".
01/27/12
Cleaner drinking water from a "miracle tree"
Using the seeds of the Moringa tree, Chemical Engineering Professor Darrell Velegol and collegues hope to produce cleaner drinking for a growing global population.
An artcle to appear in ACS' journal Langmuir, explains that a natural substance obtained from seeds of the "miracle tree" could purify and clarify water inexpensively and sustainably in the developing world, where more than 1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water, scientists report.
View the article 'Miracle Tree' Substance Produces Clean Drinking Water Inexpensively and Sustainably on the Science Daily Website.
The publication "Antimicrobial Sand via Adsorption of Cationic Moringa oleifera Protein" is available on the Langmuir Website.
01/18/12
Velegol honored with as a Fellow of the AAAS
Darrell Velegol is one of eight Penn State Faculty to be named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world's largest general scientific society and the publisher of the journal Science. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers.
Velegol is honored for experimental and theoretical breakthroughs in understanding and modeling the dynamics of complex colloidal particles.
View all the fellows and their honors in the Penn State Live article "Eight faculty named Fellows of AAAS".
07/27/11
Velegol Research Group finds "Soft spheres settle in somewhat surprising structure"
There may be a future when latex paints and drug suspensions will not need to be shaken or stirred thanks to a new understanding of how particles separate in liquids.
Professor Darrell Velegol and his group have developed a method for predicting the way colloidal components separate based on energy.
"The ongoing assumption was that if you have a mixture of different sized particles in a liquid, the faster-settling particles will end up on the bottom," said Darrell Velegol, professor of chemical engineering. "We found that in many cases it doesn't matter how fast they settle. The particles keep jostling until they reach the low-energy state."
View more about Dr. Velegol's findings in the Penn State Live article: "Soft spheres settle in somewhat surprising structure."
View the published research "Sediments of soft spheres arranged by effective density" on Nature Materials website.
09/08/10
'Miracle tree' provides clean water in developing countries?
Professor Darrell Velegol and two other Penn State researchers are studying the moringa oleifera tree in an effort to provide clean drinking water to the developing world.
05/20/10
Faculty members win EPA P3 Awards
Professor Wayne Curtis won an EPA P3 award (people, planet, prosperity) for undergrads.
Another team led by Professor Darrell Velegol (with Rick Schuhmann and Stephanie Velegol) also won and award at the EPA P3 competition.
04/14/10
Penn State Engineering Alumni Society Outstanding Teaching Awards
Darrell Velegol receives one of this year's Outstanding Teaching Awards from the Penn State Engineering Alumni Society on April 9, 2010. The photo shows Dr. Velegol receiving the award from Dean David Wormley.
This is a wonderful recognition of his teaching accomplishments and his ongoing commitment to our students.
08/06/09
Velegol Group research featured in Engineering Magazine
The Spring and Summer 2009 issue of Engineering Magazine features an article about Dr. Velegol's research group. Professor Darrell Velegol and graduate student Huda Jerri have developed a new type of microsyringe that delivers concentrated medicine at a specific target, reducing the amount of toxins circulating in the body.
Download the Microsyringes may offer better method of drug delivery.pdf of this article for the complete story.
View the entire
Spring and Summer 2009 issue of Engineering Magazine
on the College of Engineering News web site.
05/16/09
Darrell Velegol promoted to Full Professor.