Yenkie earns national recognition for chemical engineering education

Kirti Yenkie, Ph.D., an associate professor of chemical engineering in the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering, has received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Sustainable Engineering Forum’s Education Award for 2025. She accepted the award on Nov. 3 at the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston. 

A 2024 winner of the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, Yenkie applies process systems engineering principles in the areas of environmental sustainability and health care. Much of her research aims to help reduce trial and error in design and decisions related to environmental sustainability.

Yenkie gave an invited talk during the Sustainable Engineering Forum’s plenary session titled, “Teaching AI-enabled Sustainability Assessment: An Educational Roadmap encompassing activities for K-12 and Higher Ed.” She discussed the integration of AI tools in her engineering clinic courses for junior and senior students which center around team-based projects supported by industry, federal agencies and institutional funding.