Ashlee N. Ford Versypt Was Selected for the AIChE Himmelblau Award
The AIChE Computing and Systems Technology Division has recently recognized UB CBE Associate Professor Ashlee N. Ford Versypt with the 2022 Himmelblau Award for Innovations in Computer-Based Chemical Engineering Education. Her innovative educational activities and related publications and software products have led to this and many other recent awards.
Butyrate, a gut metabolite, influences the immune system through regulatory T cells (Tregs) in the gut– bone axis and promotes bone-forming activity. The Ford Versypt research group developed mathematical models for tracking butyrate throughout the body and its influence on Tregs and for simulating the consequences on bone metabolism. These models are detailed in two recent publications in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research and the AIChE Journal.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) emphasizes the integration of research and education through its Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER Award), which Ford Versypt received in 2019. The grant enabled the Ford Versypt group to develop computational models for kidney damage due to diabetes and create related educational activities, including one that trains undergraduate students to use tools from mathematical biology and chemical engineering to simulate human diseases; 11 undergraduate students have participated in this training in 2021-2022. Her group also led high school students in a hands-on drug dosing design simulation activity for the UB Chemical Engineering High School Summer Camp.
Additionally, Ford Versypt, masters student Austin Johns, and collaborators developed a 90-minute workshop on teaching with computational tools for the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)/American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Summer School for Chemical Engineering Faculty. At UB, Ford Versypt has taught Principles of Chemical Engineering, Undergraduate Research, and Chemical Engineering Mathematics and Computation, in which she introduces chemical engineering through materials and energy balances, develops professional skills in undergraduate researchers, and trains graduate students in mathematical and computational methods.
She also serves as a trustee for the non-profit Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering. These educational and service activities are strategically integrated with the mathematical and computational techniques and applications studied by Ford Versypt’s Systems Biomedicine and Pharmaceutics Laboratory to understand the mechanisms governing tissue remodeling and damage as a result of diseases and infections, and to simulate the treatment of those conditions to improve human health. Two of the lab’s recent publications on modeling the effects of nutritional supplements on bone health have been invited and featured in the 2021 Class of Influential Researchers special issue of the Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research journal and the 2022 Futures Issue of AIChE Journal. These and other publications have led to invited conference talks and seminars. Additional recent recognitions include the 2022 Young Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the 2021 Ernest W. Thiele Lectureship from the University of Notre Dame Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and the 2022 AIChE Gary Leach Recognition Award for the AIChE Education Division Virtual Communities of Practice (for facilitating a virtual group of faculty shifting to online teaching of process control and chemical reaction engineering in response to the COVID-19 pandemic).
