Chemical Engineer Virginia Jiang ’21 Wins Chopey Scholarship

Rising senior Virginia Jiang ’21 has earned the prestigious Chopey Scholarship for Chemical Engineering Excellence from Chemical Engineering magazine. A teaching assistant and researcher with Professor Scott Banta applying protein and metabolic engineering to creating novel sources of clean energy, she will receive $1,000 in recognition of her academics, leadership, and potential to impact the larger field.

The New Jersey native plans to pursue graduate work in chemical engineering and continue her research developing sustainable biotechnology for the global public interest.

“I’m so grateful to Professor Banta for welcoming me into his lab in my first year,” Jiang says. “The research experience has been transformative in my development as a scientist—I’ve learned so much about myself as well as the mechanics of protein engineering.”