News Story

Ehrman Appointed Chair of ChBE

Professor Sheryl Ehrman (left) in the lab with two of her advisees, rising junior ChBE major Kosi Aroh (center) and graduate student Chia-Ying "Winnie" Chiang (right).

The A. James Clark School of Engineering and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) extend their congratulations to Professor Sheryl Ehrman, who has been appointed Chair of the department. Her term will officially begin on August 23, 2010, when current interim chair Professor Mark Shayman will transition back to his full-time duties as Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Graduate Programs. Ehrman will be replacing Professor F. Joseph Schork, who retired at the end of June.

"Dr. Ehrman will bring to her new position the strengths that have made her so effective as the department’s former director of graduate studies," Clark School Farvardin Professor and Dean Darryll Pines wrote in a recent announcement. "We are very fortunate to find such an able leader to ensure the department’s continued progress."

Ehrman received her B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1991 and her doctorate from UCLA in 1997. Her professional research experience includes time spent working as a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and as a National Science Foundation-sponsored post-doctoral fellow at the Paul Scherrer Institute, in Villigen, Switzerland. She joined the Clark School and ChBE faculty in 1998, and later became an affiliate faculty member in both the Chemical Physics Program and the Graduate Program in Bioengineering. She is an active member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Association for Aerosol Research, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Her work as both an educator and a researcher have previously earned her a 2001 NSF CAREER award; a Fulbright Research Scholar Award, which helped fund her sabbatical at IIT during the 2006-07 academic year; and the Clark School's 2006 E. Robert Kent Outstanding Teaching Award for Junior Faculty. In 2007 she was selected to be a Keystone Professor for her dedication to excellence in the teaching of fundamental engineering courses.

Ehrman's current research projects include development of a hydrogen-free process for making metal microparticles for electronics applications, funded by the National Science Foundation and DuPont; development of low cost transition metal photoelectrocatalysts for solar hydrogen generation, a project funded by the National Science Foundation's Materials World Network and the Indian Department of Science and Technology, in collaboration with with Dayalbagh Educational Institute in Agra, India; optimization of chemical vapor deposition routes to low cost photoelectrocatalysts for solar hydrogen generation, in collaboration with Professor Ray Adomaitis (ChBE) and funded by the National Science Foundation; simulation of regional air quality, as part of the Regional Atmospheric Measurement, Modeling and Prediction Program (RAMMPP), supported by the Maryland Department of the Environment; and analysis of satellite NO₂ profiles for use in improving emissions inventories from biogenic sources, in collaboration with scientists in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, funded by NASA.

ChBE would like to thank both Professor Schork for his four years of service on the faculty and as its Chair, and Professor Shayman for his service as Interim Chair during the transition.

July 14, 2010