Outside of Doherty, ChemE graduate students participate and lead outreach events both on campus and throughout Pittsburgh. These typically include activities geared toward introducing K-12 students to STEM, as well as other events benefiting the community.
Members of Ana Torres’ group talk about how they got to Carnegie Mellon and their research to middle-schoolers during a Gelfand Outreach workshop. The kids learned about the circular economy, how a distillation column works, and the process of producing renewable biodiesel from used cooking oil. They used Aspen Plus software to simulate the process on a computer and observed the effects of changing the reflux ratio and number of distillation column stages on the product purity and CO2 emissions.
Through the Penny Wars competition, which challenged each subset of the department (divided by research area) to raise the most money by adding coins to their jar in the image below, we raised a grand total of $486.57 for Doctors Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that brings medical care to people affected by conflict, disasters, epidemics, and social exclusion. Different teams could also “sabotage” other teams by adding dollar bills to other teams’ jars, which deduct from the other team’s total. In the end, the CFE (Complex Fluids Engineering) team ended up winning for the second year in a row, contributing $187.69!
In a single year, we completed 120 hours of service, collected over a quarter-ton of food for a local food pantry, and donated over $175 toward holiday gifts for families in need.
Future City Pittsburgh
Future City is a nationwide competition that tasks middle school students with the challenge of solving an urban sustainability problem. Students must design, build, and present a model city that incorporates a solution to the problem. Examples of past challenges include storm water management and urban agriculture. Our graduate students assist each year with the Pittsburgh regional competition.
Engineer the Future
Engineer the Future is an open house/expo hosted by the Carnegie Science Center in honor of National Engineers Week. The event is geared to introducing children of all ages to the world of science and engineering. Our department participates each year and provides attendees with cool polymer activities.
Moving 4th Into Engineering
Moving 4th is an event held on CMU’s campus intended to introduce fourth-grade students to STEM. Multiple departments participate to provide the students with hands on engineering activities. In coordination with the Colloids, Polymers and Surface Science Program, our graduate students assisted with fun activities linking polymer science with real world applications.
ChEGSA Food Drive
Each year ChEGSA conducts a food drive to support a local food bank. One year, our department collected and donated over 680 pounds of food to the East End Cooperative Ministry.
Stop Hunger Now
Stop Hunger Now is a non-profit organization dedicated to ending hunger worldwide. CMU, in partnership with the Kraft Heinz Company, hosted its second annual packaging event on campus to prepare meals to be shipped overseas. Our graduate students helped to package over 120,000 meals.