PPG Industries Partnership with Northwestern Kickstarts Grad Students’ Careers
After the height of the pandemic, now fourth-year chemical engineering Ph.D. candidate Paolo Ramos attended the 2021 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting—his first- in-person conference. There, he presented his research on evaluating the electrical conductivity of carbon powder mixed in water, a fluid used in experimental batteries. The methodology to his measurements impressed Texas A&M professor Micah Green so much, the two scheduled a Zoom meeting after the conference to discuss Ramos’ research in further detail. Now, a little more than a year later, Ramos is wrapping up a co-first authored paper with a researcher from Professor Green’s group. Ramos’s conference participation, and thus this important career milestone, was made possible by support from one of Northwestern’s corporate partners.
As part of their broader partnership with Northwestern University, PPG Industries provides support for the Chemical Engineering and Chemistry departments, including funds for graduate students to attend conferences. Students who typically wouldn’t have had the chance can travel across the country to present their research and forge new connections. AIChE’s 2021 conference was one of the first chemical engineering conferences to transition back to in-person after the pandemic.
“AIChE is a nice conference to socialize with other groups whose research is related to yours and is a great avenue on getting a collaboration going. It’s also just great to see what the rest of everyone you know outside of Northwestern is up to,” Ramos said. “If I didn’t go to that conference, I wouldn’t have been able to present my work to interested individuals like Professor Micah Green and this whole collaboration would have not happened. If I didn’t go, maybe if he searched the ether that is the internet, he would’ve found our group and he would’ve been like, ‘Oh, you guys can do this. Maybe we could send you some samples to measure with your setup.’ But getting over the initial hump of like ‘let’s get a collaboration going’ was in thanks to AIChE which was in thanks to the PPG travel grant that I was given.”
Fifth-year chemical engineering Ph.D. candidate Brianna Ruggiero was also among those to use the PPG student funding to attend the 2021 AIChE annual conference. She was awarded the funds in 2020, but due to the pandemic she attended the 2020 AIChE conference virtually and waited to use her funds until 2021.
“By attending a conference virtually you don't always experience the same level of interactions, networking, and just the overall enjoyment of a conference,” she said. “Having the opportunity to attend these in person, I was able to network and get to know other graduate students that are in similar areas of research. It was also enjoyable traveling to a new city and building relationships with people outside of my university.”
In addition to the AIChE conference, Ruggiero was able to put some of the funds toward attending the American Chemical Society (ACS) conference in August 2022. At both conferences she presented her research on making hydrogen peroxide using sustainable electric chemistry. Being an oxidant, the chemical can be used to make many more chemicals in a more sustainable way.
“In my first year of grad school, I was not very confident with public speaking.” she said. “And obviously being in a research group you're expected to present research talks, literature reviews, and proposals. In my research group, I am trained to speak in front of an audience presenting my work and new ideas, but presenting that same work at a conference in front of unfamiliar faces is always nerve-racking. But after attending these conferences, I feel more confident now in my ability to communicate my research to the scientific community. What was once a weakness is becoming a strength.” After sharing her work with the senior researchers at the conference, Ruggiero walked away with several suggestions on how to improve her research that she plans to use as she completes her studies.
Moving forward, both Ruggiero and Ramos plan to go into sustainable energy. “I plan on going into industry, I don't see myself going into academia,” Ramos said. Being able to prove his abilities in research projects not directly related to his Ph.D. (like his work with Professor Green) could signal to companies that he’s capable of excelling in more than just his field of study. Ruggiero plans to continue her job search by leveraging the connections she’s made from past conferences. “It's attractive as an applicant or a candidate to show that you can communicate your work and science,” she said, “and I took advantage of the opportunity to do that.”