Chemical Engineering Climbs Rankings for Research Expenditures

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's chemical engineering research area is No. 22 in the National Science Foundation's latest rankings of research and development expenditures for various engineering programs. There are 158 chemical engineering departments in the United States.

The ranking is based on the $6.97 million in grants and external funding the College of Engineering received in the area of chemical engineering during fiscal year 2005. It is the best ranking in the history of UNL's chemical engineering program, which currently has the highest standing of any College of Engineering research area.

NSF annually rates the research and development expenditures for engineering programs at the nation's top 100 institutions. The Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering's R&D funding has risen steadily as research areas in nanotechnology and biomedical engineering have grown. In FY 2003, chemical engineering was ranked No. 35, with funding reaching $2.77 million. Although the ranking slipped to No. 39 in FY 2004, research expenditures still rose 1.4 percent.

These are some of the department's recent achievements:

• Half of the department's tenured faculty members are principal or co-investigators on National Institutes of Health grants. 
• William Velander has secured an additional $2.35 million for an ongoing project to produce a pliable, cost-effective fibrinogen bandage that clots blood on contact. The U.S. Army is using the bandage for battle wounds. 
• Velander and Kevin Van Cott have a $10 million, five-year grant from NIH to develop an oral treatment for hemophilia Type B. 
• Ravi Saraf and his graduate student Vivek Maheshwari were featured in Science magazine for developing a self-assembling nanoparticle device that has touch sensibility comparable to that of a human finger. 
• Hendrik Viljoen and Anu Subramian received a $1.37 million, five-year grant from NIH for their project, "A Rational Design of a Platform for 'De Novo' Gene Synthesis." 
• Subramanian and Gustavo Larsen received a NIH grant worth $394,370 over two years for their project, "Biomimetic Nanofibrillar Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering."

The College of Engineering's overall ranking rose three spots from No. 61 to No. 58. College funding totaled $30.7 million in FY 2005.