Most engineers I knew in my MBA program went into finance. It’s not too surprising: you need to be analytical and highly skilled in Excel. Our academic cousins in Physics were applying differential equations at Long Term Capital Management (the case study for “math gone wrong”) and prior to the housing crisis Wall Street was even hiring engineers without their MBAs (article). But there is a difference between finance for the Street and the finance used to drive operations. We’ll focus on the latter and how it ties into our fundamental building block for ChE: The Material & Energy Balance.

Departing Morristown, NJ, and arriving at Paris-Le Bourget Airport seven hours later, a Honeywell corporate jet became the first aircraft to fly from North America to Europe on a 50/50 blend of Honeywell Green Jet Fuel and standard jet fuel. Honeywell, symbolically framing the flight's significance, had their pilot follow Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic—a perfect beginning for this year's Paris Air Show.

An experience all chemical engineers (ChE) share is the variety of reactions they get at parties: “You’re a chemist? You destroy the environment? You have a life outside of crunching numbers? Or perhaps the reaction is the inevitable eye-glazing and quick transition to the weather. Occasionally, one meets a person who knows a ChE and their reaction is something more along the lines of, “So, you’re a smarty pants.”

Logging too much time on your iPad playing Angry Birds? How about a truly productive app? Browse the human genome on your iPad. Twelve years ago the complete genome wasn't even accessible. Now you can hold the work of Celera Corporation, government universities, and research centers from around the world in your hands. Isn't this is the way technology is supposed to work, making life simpler and more productive at the same time? Take your iPad to the lab guilt-free and share it with colleagues.

On June 18th, 24 members and guests of the AIChE took a tour of the Croton Water Treatment Facility at Mosholu. The group included 6 student members representing NYU-Polytechnic, City College, SUNY Buffalo and SUNY-Cornell.

W.H. Dow Professor at M.I.T, Gregory Stephanopoulos, has been awarded a prestigious 2011 Eni Award for his groundbreaking research on modifying the genetic structure of bacteria with the goal of making them more efficient for transforming renewable raw materials. An example would be the transformation of domestic waste into hydrocarbons.