Student Received Best Paper Award at International Meeting

Laura C. Bradley, an undergraduate student in Chemical Engineering and working at the EMS Energy Institute, received a Best Student Paper Award at the 2009 Clearwater Clean Coal Conference for her paper, The Effect of Fuel Composition on Pyrolysis Kinetics.

She received the award during the 34th International Technical Conference on Clean Coal and Fuel Systems held from May 31 to June 4, 2009. The Best Student Paper Award Committee evaluated the students on the manuscript they submitted and the presentation of the material during conference technical sessions.

Nine students participated in the award representing Penn State, University of Stuggart, The Ohio State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Illinois Institute of Technology, and University of Utah. Laura, who recently completed her sophomore year, was the sole undergraduate student in the competition while the others were graduate students. Two students were awarded Best Paper and Laura shared the honor with a PhD student from the University of Utah.

Laura presented work she performed as an Independent Study during Fall 2008 that was funded by the Foster Wheeler, NA. Her advisor for the Independent Study and co-author on the manuscript was Dr. Sharon Falcone Miller. Laura Bradley has worked in research at the EMS Energy Institute since the summer after her freshman year to the present. Her plans are to continue her work in pyrolysis kinetics leading to a journal publication of her research.