Christina Chan from the Michigan State University College of Engineering has been named a Fellow by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the highest grade of membership within her professional organization.
Chan is the University Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (CHEMS) at MSU and Interim CHEMS Chairperson. The honor “reaffirms the high esteem with which your colleagues and peers view your distinctive professional achievements and accomplishments.”
Candidates are nominated by their peers and have significant chemical engineering experience (generally 25 years), have demonstrated significant service to the profession, and have been a member of AIChE for at least 10 years. Election is achieved through the AIChE Board of Directors.
At MSU, she has additional appointments in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biomedical Engineering, and Computer Science and Engineering.
Chan earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania working with Stuart W. Churchill on coal pyrolysis. After graduate studies, she spent eight years at DuPont Marshall Laboratory developing coatings and color science for automotive refinish.
Prior to joining MSU in 2002, Chan returned to academia as a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Engineering in Medicine at the Harvard Medical School working on the bioartificial liver.
Her laboratory at MSU applies multifaceted approaches in investigating the role of soluble and surface cues in the microenvironment on modulating the signaling and regulatory pathways that contribute to diseases. To modulate these targets and pathways, her laboratory is developing polymeric-based drug delivery systems as well as tissue engineering platforms that capitalize on how scaffolds, cells, and biologically active molecules interact to form functional tissues. She has published more than 160 journal articles, reviews, book chapters and reviewed conference papers and has contributed to more than $35 million of funding to MSU.
She was elected a Fellow of American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2012. Among various roles, she has served as a leader of AIChE’s Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Division. She has received the Recipient of the AIChE Area Forum 15D/E Engineering Fundamentals in Life Science Award.