“The more, the merrier” describes James Ferri’s view of teaching chemical engineering.
“There are certain relationships where you enjoy exclusivity and others where you’re having such a good time that you want more people involved,” says Ferri, an assistant professor who joined the Lafayette faculty in 2001. “That’s how I feel in general about the study of engineering. Pedagogy is a way to teach people to communicate with you. One of the fun things about teaching students how to solve problems is that, in the end, there are more people with whom you can discuss the types of problems that interest you.”
Ferri, who earned both his baccalaureate and doctoral degrees at Johns Hopkins, says he himself was an “abysmal” student in high school who vowed as a senior “to stay as far away from physics as possible.” But all that changed.
He first studied chemical engineering as part of his undergraduate pre-med curriculum. Research with a professor at Hopkins – and his dad’s advice to stick with it – led him to pursue a master’s degree, which was supplanted by a Ph.D., in the discipline.
“I realized that I enjoyed this, and wasn’t sure what I’d think of medicine,” says Ferri of his career path. “I don’t have any regrets. As the role played by chemical engineers in biotechnology and bioengineering continues to increase, I feel I will be able to contribute to problems of medical relevance.”
One of his interests centers on how polymers interact with model biological membranes. On research leave from Lafayette next year he will study the dynamics of self-assembly of nanometer-scale polyelectrolyte composites as a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interface Science near Berlin through a grant from Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Most of his classes focus on more traditional chemical engineering, including fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer, and separation processes. The more he teaches, the more he realizes “what my teachers did for me.”
His former students, however, aren’t waiting to express their appreciation for him. “He is a very hands-on instructor who cared very much about students and would do anything he could to help them learn,” says Alanna Cleary ’03, now an engineer for Merck Pharmaceuticals.
Dan Connolly ’02, a process engineer in digital imaging for Rohm and Haas Co., says Ferri is also an outstanding mentor. “He always took the time to go through a derivation or a concept and explain it when I didn’t understand it completely,” Connolly says. They collaborated on a project to measure the effect of fluid mechanical forces on the viability of hybridoma cells in hopes of implementing a technique for calibrating the forces exerted on fluid in process-piping networks.
“As a mentor in research, Professor Ferri demonstrated what true research is like,” says Ryan Collins ’03, with whom Ferri worked on a project called “Engineering an Artificial Cell Wall.” “Not only did he demand a lot of work out of his research students, but he worked just as hard to see that the project was a success. He helped make me successful at work and as a person.”
Highlights
Publications: “Nanoscale Encapsulation of Single Living Mammalian Cells” (co-author Ryan Collins ’03 [B.S. chemical engineering]), AIChE National Conference, Topical Conference on Nanobiotechnology, San Francisco, CA, November, 2003; “Passing It On: A Laboratory Structure Encouraging Realistic Communication and Creative Experiment Planning’ (co-author Scott Moor, assistant professor of chemical engineering), Chemical Engineering Education, Vol. 37 (2003); “Curvature Effects in the Analysis of Pendant Bubble Data: Comparison of Numerical Solutions, Asymptotic Arguments, and Data (co-authors S.Y. Lin and K.J. Stebe), Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 241 (2001)
Honors: Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship, July 2004-August 2006; Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Fellowship, Summer 2002; First place, AIChE mid-Atlantic region, Student Research Paper Competition, awarded to student Daniel Connolly ’02 [B.S. chemical engineering](2002); Second place, AIChE National Student Research Paper Competition, awarded to student Daniel Connolly ’02 (2002)
Accomplishments: Visiting scientist, Max Planck Institute for Colliods and Interfaces, Golm-Potsdam, Germany, June-August 2002; January, August 2003; January 2004; Invited speaker on surfactant adsorption dynamics and monolayer penetration: BASF Corporation, Limburgerhoff, Germany, August 2002
Contact: (610) 330-5820; ferrij@lafayette.edu
A National Leader in Undergraduate Research. Marquis Scholar Ryan Collins ’03 coauthored a paper presented by James Ferri, assistant professor of chemical engineering, at the national conference of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.