Seven Paper Science & Engineering students received their PhDs during Georgia Tech’s May commencement and are beginning their careers or pursuing post-doctorate work in both the public and private sectors.

“We are very proud of these young men and women and their significant achievement, as well as their contributions to RBI while studying at Georgia Tech,” said Executive Director Norman Marsolan. “We cannot emphasize enough what a tremendous impact they have on our day-to-day work. These bright young minds are a critical part of advancing renewable biproducts research and addressing both challenges and opportunities today and in the future.”

Graduates included:

• Qining Sun, Chemistry (Advisor-Art Ragauskas) Next Step: Post-Doctorate at ORNL

• Tyrone Wells Jr., Chemistry (Advisor-Art Ragauskas) Next Step: Post-Doctorate at ORNL

• Caitlin Meree, Materials Science & Engineering (Advisor-Meisha Shofner) Next Step: Senior Research Engineer, Safety and Graphics Business Lab, 3M Corp.

• Jessica Lee Ewbank, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (Advisor: Carsten Sievers) Next Step: The Dow Chemical Corp.

• Oluwatimilehin “Timi” Fadiran, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (Advisor: Carson Meredith) Next Step: R&D Technical Leadership Program (TLP) at Sealed Air Corporation (also received master’s degree in Paper Science & Engineering)

• Yuzhi Kang, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (Advisor: Andreas Bommarius and Matthew Realff) Next Step: Enzymatic Deinking Technologies, Norcross, GA.

• Gautami Newalkar, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (Advisor: Pradeep Agrawal) Next Step: TBD