Michigan State University again earned national recognitions in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Student Design Contest, earning first-place honors for the third consecutive year.
Megan Herman took top honors and will receive the A. McLaren White Award for best overall individual design. Mia Vollkommer won the first-place award in 2025 and Lauren Petrie won in 2024.
Herman earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in May 2026. She is now an operations technical specialist at Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing (GRAM) in Grand Rapids. GRAM provides pharmaceutical contract manufacturing services for clinical and commercial projects.
R. Mark Worden, professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (ChEMS), said students nationwide submit solutions to a defined competition problem each year. Professional chemical engineers then judge the entries, looking for a wide range of self-learning and calculation skills, as well as integration of safety, technical and economic factors.
In this year’s contest, undergraduates were challenged to develop a safe, optimized process to convert agricultural waste into a renewable natural gas, or biomethane, for injection into the local natural gas grid. To help optimize profitability, the process had to generate marketable byproducts, such as agricultural fertilizer and purified carbon dioxide.
“MSU students approach the annual competition as an excellent training experience,” Worden explained.
Other MSU honors
Fourth-year chemical engineering student Shubhan Nagarkar won second place in the individual design category. Fourth-year chemical engineering students Gabe Brewer and Lainey Gouin received honorable mentions in the team design category.
Awards will be presented at the 2026 AIChE Annual Student Conference in Minneapolis in November. All winners will receive national recognition and a certificate.
“These awards further build on MSU’s longstanding reputation for excellence in AIChE's prestigious national competition,” Worden added.
About AIChE
AIChE is a professional society of more than 52,000 members from more than 128 countries.
Its members work in corporations, universities, and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop products that benefit society.
MSU’s AIChE student chapter is considered among the most successful chapters in the country. For more information about the MSU chapter, visit its website.
Written by Patricia Mroczek
MSU College of Engineering Media and Public Relations page