School Notes: School of Engineering & Applied Science
July/August 2021

Sterling professorship awarded

Menachem Elimelech, who researches physical and chemical processes at the nexus of water and energy, has been appointed the Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, the first Yale engineer so named. The Sterling Professorship is awarded to a tenured faculty member considered one of the best in his or her field and is one of the university’s highest faculty honors. Elimelech’s lab examines membrane-based processes for energy-efficient desalination and wastewater reuse; advanced materials for next-generation water decontamination technologies; and environmental applications of nanomaterials. He has authored more than 450 refereed journal publications, and is the lead author of the book Particle Deposition and Aggregation.

Professor elected to NAS

Hui Cao, the John C. Malone Professor of Applied Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Physics, was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of her distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Cao is among 120 new members elected to the academy, which is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a US scientist or engineer. Cao has been a Yale faculty member since 2008; her research is focused on understanding and controlling quantum optical processes in nanostructures. Her many other honors include an NSF CAREER award, the Packard Fellowship, the Sloan Fellowship, the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award, and the Guggenheim Fellowship.

A new way to detect early-stage brain cancer

A team of Yale researchers has developed a non-invasive way to observe changes in salt levels in the brain in the early stages of cancer growth. When cancer invades the brain, normal salt levels are quickly thrown off-kilter, but detecting this change in patients has been difficult. This new method, developed in the lab of Fahmeed Hyder ’95PhD, professor of biomedical engineering & radiology and biomedical imaging, was recently published in Nature Scientific Reports with lead author Muhammad Khan ’22PhD, a biomedical engineering graduate student. The new method could lead to several new directions in treating cancer, from earlier diagnosis to new drugs for targeting cancer cells.