2002-03 XEROX SCHOLARS NAMED
The purpose of the Xerox Scholarship Program is to encourage outstanding female students to complete their degrees in engineering. According to James S. Hutchinson, the program strategy manager at Xerox Corporation and a 1968 mechanical engineering graduate, presented the awards to six scholars for the 2002-03 academic year. They are: Tracy Blichfeldt, chemical engineering; Lauren Krietemeyer, computer science and engineering; Erin Laird, electrical engineering; Kelly Landers, electrical engineering; Anne Mierendorf, chemical engineering; and Sara Sreniawski, chemical engineering.

KIJEWSKI-CORREA RECEIVES TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP
Tracy Kijewski-Correa, a doctoral candidate in civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, was awarded the 2001-02 Structural Engineering Traveling Fellowship by the Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill (SOM) Foundation. The fellowship which is a $7,500 reward is awarded annually to students studying structural engineering.

Prior to this honor, Kijewski-Correa, a native of East Chicago, Ind., was also a fellow for the Center for Applied Mathematics at the University of Notre Dame. She was also the recipient of an outstanding graduate student teaching award for excellence in teaching from the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning, a National Defense Science and Engineering Fellowship, and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Trainee scholarship.

Her research includes structural dynamics, random vibrations, time-domain and frequency-domain analysis techniques, stochastic analysis, wind/structure-interaction and provisions for wind effects in codes and standards.

For a recap of Tracy's trip to Asia, visit http://www.nd.edu/~engineer/current/asia.html

BRENNECKE AWARDED IPATIEFF PRIZE
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has awarded its Ipatieff Prize to Joan F. Brennecke, professor of chemical engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

Awarded every three years, the Ipatieff Prize honors outstanding experimental work in the field of catalysis or high-pressure chemistry by researchers under the age of 40.

A Notre Dame faculty member since 1989, Brennecke is a pioneer in high-pressure studies of the local molecular structure of supercritical fluid solutions and the effect of this local structure on the reaction rates in a single phase. She specializes in environmentally conscious chemical process design, thermodynamics, solvent effects on reactions and supercritical fluids. Her work recently was featured in the prestigious journal Nature.

Brennecke earned her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Texas in 1984. She received her master's and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1987 and 1989.

For more info on Professor Brennecke's research in "green" engineering, visit http://www.nd.edu/~chegdept/Brennecke.html

CAROL HANK HOFFMANN ('78, CHEG) has been elected to the University of Notre Dame's Board of Trustees. Hoffmann, from Minnetonka, Minn., has served on the College of Engineering's advisory council since 1993. She previously worked in research and development for four years with the DuPont Company in Troy, Mich., and for six years with the Pillsbury Company in Minneapolis.

DIANE L. PETERS, P.E. ('93, AME) was presented with the Distinguished New Engineer Award from the Soceity of Women Engineers at the annual meeting in October 2002. Peters is a project engineer at Western Printing Machinery Company in Schiller Park, Ill.