Howard University Chemical Engineering Ph.D. Candidate Sama Ghadiri Earns Top Honors at the 2026 ACS I&EC Division and DCCEAS Paper Competitions
Bringing well-deserved recognition to Howard University’s Department of Chemical Engineering, Ph.D. candidate Sama Ghadiri has earned multiple prestigious awards for her groundbreaking research on sustainable plant protein separation and its applications in emerging food technologies, including 3D food printing.
Conducting her doctoral research under the mentorship of Solmaz Tabtabaei, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Ghadiri focuses on sustainable tribo-electrostatic separation (TES) technology for plant protein enrichment. Her research is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture through the Bioprocessing and Biomanufacturing Program.
“These awards reflect our lab’s efforts to advance particle engineering and sustainable bio-separation, with applications spanning food and other biobased industries. Ghadiri’s dedication and valuable contributions have helped move this research forward,” said Tabtabaei.
Ghadiri recently received the Second-Best Paper and Presentation Award at the Industrial & Engineering Chemistry (I&EC) Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall Meeting in Chicago. During the conference, she presented her research paper “Data-Driven Optimization of a Sustainable Tribo-Electrostatic Separation (TES) Process for Protein Enrichment from Plants,” which explores innovative approaches to improving the efficiency and sustainability of plant-based protein production. Her participation in the ACS Fall Meeting was supported by Howard University’s Graduate School. Findings from this work have also been published in Powder Technology and the Journal of Food Engineering.
Earlier this year, Ghadiri earned the First-Place Paper Award in the Engineering Paper Competition presented by the District of Columbia Council of Engineering and Architectural Societies (DCCEAS). Ghadiri and Tabtabaei were both recognized at the 2026 National Engineers Week Awards Banquet for their paper “Roles of Particle Dosing Rate and Turbulent Airflow on the Triboelectric Charging of Yellow Pea Protein and Starch.” The award highlights their contributions to advancing sustainable bio-separation technologies and deepening the understanding of triboelectric charging mechanisms in plant-based materials. The research was also published in Food Research International.
These achievements underscore Howard University’s growing impact in sustainable engineering and food innovation while highlighting Ghadiri’s contributions to developing technologies that support a more sustainable and resilient global food system.