2023

September 2023: I am very excited about some of our recent results. Looking forward to publishing papers to describe them. 

August 2023: We were awarded a grant from the NSF to continue our work with membranes to purify fatty acids and fatty acid esters.  
July 2023: I just returned from Montana State University where I met with our collaborators.  They are doing some great science, I am happy to be working with them.

Spring 2023: Congrats to Nimesh and Arjun for defending their PhD theses!  I am very proud of their work and they are terrific scientists.

2022

July 2022: Wow, I didn't update this for a while!  In the last year James Grace graduated with his Ph.D., Nimesh attended the National Biodiesel Conference on a fellowship and gave a talk there, we published papers, received grants, and did some great science. 

2021

June 2021: Congrats to James for his paper being accepted into ACS Omega. 

June 2021: Congrats to Justin Carter for winning $20,000 in a business competition for his start-up Theion Agriculture.

January 2021: Wow, someone didn't update this in 2020!  Some notable events in 2020 were that Nimesh and Arjun passed their second year comprehensive examinations, Matt joined our research groups, Justin got his NSF SBIR Phase I proposal funded, and Katerine received her M.S.  

2019

October 2019: Congrats to Justin for publishing his paper!

September 2019: Congrats to Ned for giving a seminar to the chemistry department at the university of Iowa. 

June 2019: We welcome Kaiwen Yang and Leah Rietz who are two local high school students who will work in our lab. 

June 2019: We welcome Anna Humpleby and Ben Hong as two high school students to work in our lab. 

May 2019: Congrats to Gelsen Chen on getting a full-time summer internship at Proctor and Gamble. 

2018

December 2018: We welcome Nimesh into our research group.

December 2018: We welcome Arjun into our research group. 

December 2018: Congrats to Justin for having his paper accepted into PLOS One. 

November 2018: Congrats to Justin for defending his Ph.D.! 

June 2018: Congrats to Chad for having his paper accepted into ACS Omega. 

May 2018: Congrats to Chad for graduating with his Ph.D.!

May 2018: Congratulations to Eric for passing his comprehensive exam, and to Kyle for graduating with his Masters degree!

April 2018: Congrats to James for passing his comprehensive exam, and to Chad for successfully defending his thesis!

March 2018: Congratulations to Chad on winning an Outstanding POLY Poster Award at the 255th ACS National Meeting in New Orleans! Chad also gave an oral presentation during the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium. Both presentations involved new research on smart epoxy nanofiltration membranes for chemical separations.

2017

December 2017: We would like to welcome Katherine Sulaitis to the group!

November 2017: Congratulations to Chad on being selected to give an oral presentation in the "Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research" symposium at the upcoming spring ACS National Meeting in New Orleans.

October 2017: Ned recently presented at the 2017 AIChE conference in Minneapolis about epoxy nanofiltration membranes and their applications to separations of fatty acids and fatty acid methyl esters, and new research involving "smart" epoxy membranes.

August 2017: Congrats to Chad on being named a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fellow.

August 2017: The Bowden Group recently went to the Iowa State Fair for some science outreach. We had a great time showing future Hawkeye scientists cool experiments and getting them excited about science!

June 2017: We would like to welcome Eric Brown to the group!

May 2017: Congrats to Justin and Chad on receiving Graduate College Summer Fellowships.

May 2017: Congrats to Orlando for graduating with his Masters.

2016

December 2016: We would like to welcome James Grace, Orlando Torres-Texidor, and Kyle Lobermeier to the group!

December 2016: Congrats to Chad for receiving a Next Generation Students for Biodiesel Scholarship to attend the National Biodiesel Conference and present a poster on his research with nanoporous epoxy membranes and the separation of fatty acid esters.

August 2016: Justin, Chad, and Ned all recently returned from the Gordon Research Conference: Membranes Materials and Processes. Justin, Chad, and Ned all presented posters on their current research projects and Chad was invited to give a Late-Breaking Topic talk about tunable nanoporous poly(epoxy) membranes.

February 2016: Ned recently presented at the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Spring Symposium, while Chad and Justin presented a poster on the new project involving nanoporous epoxy membranes.

2015

May 2015: Congrats to Chad Gilmer for earning an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award!

May 2015: Congratulations to Chad and Justin for passing the second year Comprehensive Examinations.

2014

December 2014: Congrats to Robert for graduating with his MS.

October 2014: Congrats to us on being awarded a USDA-AFRI grant! 

October 2014: Someone has been slow to update this site.  Congrats to Clayton Peace who graduated with is MS in May of 2014. 

2013

December 2013: Welcome to Justin Carter and Chad Gilmer who just joined our research group.  

December 2013: Congrats to Ned for finishing the U of IA Venture school.  This intensive school was based on the NSF model to help launch start-up companies.  Pure Oleochemicals is closer to being fully launched!

August 2013: We had fun at the Iowa State Fair presenting science to kids of all ages.  We got them involved in chemistry experiments and kept them around answering their questions. It is wonderful to see such excitement about science. 

July 2013: Good-bye to Nina who was our high school student this summer.  She did a wonderful job and succeeded in a project that had a high chance of failure. Good work!

July 2013: Congrats to Tyler Long on receiving a Department of Chemistry Graduate Fellowship!

May 2013: Congrats to Tyler Long for earning an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award!  Congrats to Jason Zeman for winning an undergraduate award!

April 2013: Congrats to Ned and Abhi for winning $2,500 in a business competition!  Our company, Vetzuren, is starting to take off.  

April 2013: Congrats to Jason for winning first place in the Natural Sciences Section of the poster session featuring undergraduate research!