News from Chemical Engineering

Dr. Randy S. Lewis receives the 2003 Halliburton Outstanding Faculty Award.  Halliburton awards are provided annually to recognize outstanding teaching and overall performance for both young and experienced CEAT faculty.  This year, Dr. Randy S. Lewis received the 2003 Halliburton Outstanding Faculty Award, in recognition for his strong, sustained and stellar record of accomplishments throughout the broad aspects of all three of the classis descriptions of a faculty position-teaching, research, and service-some of which have lead to national recognition.

In 2000, our school was granted a new Biomedical option in the Chemical Engineering undergraduate degree program, and to a large part this was made possible because of Randy's curriculum development efforts.  Randy is the academic advisor for the entire undergraduate ChE program.

Randy has been the AIChE Student Chapter Advisor for the past seven years.  In that time the students have won national recognition for their newsletter, "Outstanding" ratings in five years for overall chapter activities, and four times in the past seven years the OSU student nominee has been awarded a national AIChE scholarship.  Each of these events reflects a top 10% performance accomplishment at the national level, and , and each can be directly attributed to Randy's ability to generate allegiance, dedication, leadership, and performance from the students.

In recognition, Dr. Lewis received the CEAT Advisor of the Year Award in 1999, and the AIChE National Student Chapter Advisor Award in 2000.  Only one person receives these awards in any given year.

Randy initiated the "Chem-E Car" competition at OSU as a required classroom exercise which integrates sophomore and junior level students into teams.  The chemical reaction powered car competition is a new national contest for undergraduates coordinated by the AIChE. 

He has managed several OSU Freshman Research Scholars, six Wentz Research Scholars, and 12 graduate students over the past nine years.  Presently, Randy is Chair of the AIChE Career and Education Operating Council.

Randy has been very effective in building a research program.  Through collaborations with faculty from Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering and Biochemistry at OSU, and others at OU and Mississippi State, he has been a principal in the development of several bio-related research programs.  Additionally he has developed independent funding from NSF and the Whittaker Foundation.