October 1, 2009: Kim Heck and Dr. Wong (with collaborators Profs. Halas, Scuseria, and
Janesko) received the Best Fundamental Paper in 2008 Award from the South Texas Section
of AIChE, for their JACS paper on in situ spectroscopy work using Pd-coated gold
nanoshells.

July 15, 2009: Prof. Wong Professor Wong received an IBB Hamill Innovations Award with
Prof. Gonzalez (CHBE) and Prof. Silberg (BCB) for their project "Synthesis and
characterization of bionanoparticles for light-triggered control of protein function."

July 2009: We welcome Ms. Margaret Watkins and re-welcome Mr. Luca Pasquali and Mr.
Sriram Chandrasekhar to the group!

June 2009: Our nanoparticle-assembled capsules work is featured in a new television
episode of "DragonflyTV"!  This Emmy-awarding winning children's science program is shown
on PBS stations and on the web (http://pbskidschannel.org/dragonflytv/show/selfassembly.html).
The encapsulation/release of food dyes using safe self-assembly chemistry is demonstrated.

June 2009: We welcome Mr. Apoorv Bhargava, Mr. Carlos D. Rueda (2009 HHMI IBB Intern), Mr. Clay Calloway, and Ms. Isiana Rendon (2009 NSF IGERT Summer Undergraduate Researcher) into our group this summer!

May 4-7, 2009: Gautam, Ramsey, Nikos, and Yu-lun gave presentations at the NSTI Nanotech Meeting in Houston, TX.

May 2009: Nikos Soultanidis received a Gerondelis Foundation Scholarship.  Super!

May 2009: Dr. Jie Yu joins our Group as a post-doctoral research associate! Her advisors
are Professors Wong and Mason Tomson (CEVE).

May 2009: Amy Liu and Lori Pretzer were chosen to receive an Arthur L. Draper Award and
a Harry B. Weiser Teaching Award, respectively, from the Chemistry Department. Great!

April 24, 2009: Nikos Soultanidis was recognized with a Best Poster Award for
presentation "Relating pentane isomerization activity to surface density and the acidic
properties of WOx/ZrO2" at the 2009 Spring Symposium of the Southwest Catalysis Society. Congratulations!

April 13-17, 2009: Benny and Yu-lun gave presentations at the Spring Meeting of MRS in
SF, CA.

April 7, 2009: Kimberly Heck successfully defended her Chemical Engineering PhD thesis on "Developing Gold-based Nanostructures to Study Catalytic Reactions in Water"!

April 2009: Yulun Fang was accepted into the Eleventh National School on Neutron and
X-ray Scattering, to held in May and June at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne
National Laboratory.

April 2009: Barney Cruz was accepted into the NanoJapan Program for this summer!

February 2009: Nikos Soultanidis received a Hellenic Professional Society of Texas
Scholarship.  Nice!

January 2009: Dr. Sukit Leekumjorn joins our research group as a post-doctoral research associate.

December 16, 2008: Shyam Benegal receives the 2007 Kobayashi Fellowship Award in Chemical Engineering (named in honor of Professor Emeritus Riki Kobayashi), given annually for the best PhD thesis proposal.

December 2008: Juan C. Velazquez, Sravani Gullapalli, and Richard Lucas join our research group as first-year Chemical Engineering PhD candidates.

November 16-21, 2008: Kimberly Heck, Gautam Kini, Hitesh Bagaria, and Nikos Soultanidis gave oral presentations at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Good work!

November 2008: Lori A. Pretzer joins our research group as a first-year Chemistry PhD candidate.

September 2008: Barney Cruz, Allen Liao, and Christopher Romanczuk join our group as Century Scholars. Welcome!

September 2008: Ms. Xi Liang joins our group as a visiting chemical engineering graduate student from Tianjin University, China. Welcome!

July 2008: Grant Belgard receives a National Institutes of Health Oxford/Cambridge (OXCAM) Scholarship. Congrats! (http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=11218)

June 18, 2008: Professor Wong and collaborator Dr. Ching H. Tung (The Methodist Hospital Research Institute) received an IBB Medical Innovations Award. (http://cohesion.rice.edu/centersandinst/ibb2/about.cfm?doc_id=11133)

June 2008: Michael Wong, associate professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and in chemistry, is interviewed on KRIV-TV
(http://www.criticalmention.com/components/url_gen/play_asx.php?
clip_info=568804944%7C4%7C70%5E568805154%7C0%7C70%5E5688057)

April 2008: Quang Nguyen receives a Fellowship for the NSF IGERT Training Program in Nanophotonics. His IGERT co-advisor is Professor Naomi Halas. Congrats!
(98%7C0%7C70%5E568806409%7C0%7C70%5E568806731%7C0%7C49)

April 2008: Graduating senior Grant Belgard received a 2008 Outstanding Seniors Award from the Office of Student Activities and the Rice Student Association, and a Salsburg Award in Chemistry from the Department of Chemistry. Congrats!

April 16, 2008: Jie Yu successfully defended her Chemical Engineering PhD thesis on near-infrared-active nanoparticle-assembled capsules!

April 4, 2008: Kimberly Heck was recognized for her award-winning poster presentation at the 2008 Spring Symposium of the Southwest Catalysis Society. She was one of four winners, chosen out of 17 posters in the competition. The title of her poster was "In-situ Detection of Surface Reaction Intermediates Using Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)", which was co-authored with Professors Halas, Scuseria, and Wong and Dr. Janesko. Congratulations!

February 11, 2008: Subashini Asokan successfully defended her Chemistry PhD thesis on CdSe quantum dot/tetrapod production!

January 2008: Quang Nguyen joins our research group as a first-year Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD candidate. Welcome!

January 2008: Our paper on the highly selective CdSe tetrapod synthesis using cationic surfactants is one of the "Most accessed articles" of the journal Small in 2007.

January 2008: A picture of CdSe quantum dot suspensions from the Group is featured in a textbook (Chemistry, 5th Edition, McCurry and Fay). (picture)

January 2008: Sumedh Warudkar joins our research group as a first-year Chemical Engineering PhD candidate. Mr. Warudkar is co-advised by Prof. George Hirasaki. Welcome!

December 2007: Ramsey J. Smith joins our research group as a first-year Chemistry PhD candidate. Welcome!

December 2007: Grant Belgard was selected for a 2008 Marshall Scholarship, which he will use for his graduate studies at University of Oxford. Congratulations!
(http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=10380)
(http://www.marshallscholarship.org/winners.html)

December 2007: Dr. Zhiqing Yuan joins our group as a visiting research scientist from the Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology, SINOPEC, China. Welcome!

November 4-9, 2007: Kimberly Heck, Yu-lun Fang, Enrique Munoz, Shyam Benegal, and Gautam Kini all gave oral presentations at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. Good work!

October 2007: Dan Nelson, a freshman at Rice, joins our research lab as a Century Scholar. Welcome!

October 2007: Smithsonian magazine has named Prof. Wong to its list of "America's Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences: 37 Under 36."
(http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=10121&SnID=2)
(http://images.smithsonianmag.com/content/innovators/)

October 2007: An tUasal Nicholas Nolan and Mark Boylan join our group as FAS Science Challenge Fellows. They are PhD graduate students in the School of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland. Céad míle fáilte!

September 2007: Xuejiao "Jessica" Tang joins our group as a visiting environmental chemistry graduate student from the College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University in Tianjin, China. Welcome!

August 2007: Wen-Yin "Lynn" Ko joins our group as a visiting chemistry graduate student from the Department of Chemistry, National Chung-Hsing University, in Taichung, Taiwan. Welcome!

June 2007: Dr. Hitesh Bagaria (PhD, University of Alabama) joins our group as a postdoctoral research associate. Welcome!

June 17-22, 2007: The 20th North American Catalysis Society Meeting was held in Houston, TX (http://www.nacatsoc.org/20nam/), hosted by the Southwest Catalysis Society (SWCS). Kimberly Heck and Yulun Fang received Richard J. Kokes Travel Awards for this meeting.

May 2007: Professor Wong received early promotion to Associate Professor with tenure, effective July 1, 2007.

May 4, 2007: At the Chemistry Department Awards Luncheon this year, Subashini Asokan received the Harry Weiser Research Award (+ money!) for outstanding research by a Chemistry graduate student. Also, Amy Liu received an Engel Fellowship for undergraduate summer research.

March 17, 2007: Jie Yu received a third-place award for her poster presentation ("Synthesis of Near-Infrared-Absorbing Nanoparticle-Assembled Capsules") at the annual graduate student poster symposium of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department.

February 25-27, 2007: Prof. Wong organized and ran the "Nanotechnology-enabled Water Treatment" (NeWT) Workshop, held in Houston, TX. Over 50 experts from around the world attended this three-day event. (web site)

February 2007: Professor Wong was selected to receive a 3M Nontenured Faculty Award.

January 2007: Gautam C. Kini and Nikolaos Soultanidis join our lab as first-year Chemical Engineering PhD candidates. Mr. Kini is co-advised by Prof. Lisa Biswal. Welcome!

January 2007: Nurgul Akcin joins our group as a visiting chemistry graduate student from Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. Welcome!