1st Place Again!
2009 AIChE National Student Design Competition

Jared Clark, Ashi Samili, and Kristin Wallace received the AIChE Safety and Health Division, Ephraim Scheier and Walt Silowka Award for the integration of safety in their solution to the AIChE Student Design Competition.

Kristin Wallace is from Edmond, OK, and received her BS degree in ChE last May. She is now working in Fort Worth, TX as a Field Engineer for Chesapeake Energy.

Kristin writes: Safety is key in any job or industry. To build inherent safety into our biofuels process design, we worked with the lowest possible pressures and temperatures, and also added safety features such as excess capacity to our vessels and relief systems to accommodate worst case scenarios. We made time to brainstorm some "what if" situations before the design left the preliminary design stage.

Jared Clark is from Tulsa, OK, and also graduated in May 2009 with a BS ChE. He was recently commissioned as an officer in the Navy, and will move to Charleston, SC to attend Nuclear Power School after upon completion I will be attached to a submarine as a Nuclear Engineer.

Ashi Samli was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, but completed high school at the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. She worked in Great Brittan as an engineering intern one summer, and is now in the ChE Masters Program at OSU. Her focus is on optimizing processes based on sustainability.

Ashi recalls: With Dr. Wagner ingraining in our minds "Safety, Safety, Safety!" we knew we had to include inherent safety in our design. From material of construction selection to preventing over pressurization in the process equipment, we considered safety and our environment in the heart of our design.

This is the fourth recognition for best incorporation of inherent safety in the annual plant design contest received by OSU students. We also won the honors in 2002, 05, and 08.

Justin, Ashi, and Kristin will be recognized in a ceremony at the National AIChE Meeting this November in Nashville, TN.

Here are photos of them enjoying school assignments.