Klapperich, Pal Named AAAS Fellows
By Patrick L. Kennedy
Two College of Engineering faculty have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. Professor Catherine Klapperich (BME, MSE, ME) and Professor Uday Pal (ME, MSE) were selected for extraordinary achievements in their fields by the AAAS Council. The nonprofit organization publishes the journal Science, among others.
Klapperich, who is also director of the Precision Diagnostics Center, was cited “for distinguished contributions to the field of biomedical engineering, particularly the development of integrated microsystems for point-of-care diagnosis of disease for global and women’s health,” according to an AAAS announcement. Pal was cited for “pioneering work providing novel materials-based solutions in the field of green engineering as applied to energy conversion and primary production of materials.”
ENG professor Catherine Klapperich for ENGineer alumni magazine.
Photographed by Dana J. Quigley for BU Photography.
Over the past year, Klapperich has been better known to the BU community for building the University’s COVID-19 testing lab. But for several years, she has been pioneering portable molecular diagnostics. These “point-of-care” kits would be as easy to use as home pregnancy tests, but they’re aimed at detecting sexually transmitted infections, such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, and human papillomavirus (HPV)—a marker for cervical cancer risk. Klapperich and colleagues have also begun work on a wearable device that would monitor hormones such as progesterone in real time.
Should they be translated to the market, as Klapperich hopes, such portable kits would make life easier for women in the U.S., as well as cut costs by obviating the need for multiple trips to a clinic. But in developing countries, especially in rural areas where clinics are few and far between, this technology could be more than a convenience—it could save thousands of lives.
“Our mission as a laboratory is really to take a step back and think about women’s health more broadly,” says Klapperich, “and to be thoughtful about engineering solutions that include diverse perspectives and are informed by evidence-based medicine.”
As to the AAAS honor, Klapperich says, “It was a good surprise in a terrible year.” She is looking forward to taking a more active part in the group’s communication and education efforts. “If the last four years have taught us anything,” she says, “it’s that the voices of scientists need to be amplified—for the good of everyone, for environmental and health reasons.”
ENG/ MSE Visiting Committee Group Photos
ENG Prof. Uday Pal
Photo by Vernon Doucette for Boston University Photography
Pal, too, says he was “honored and delighted to be included among this distinguished group of scholars.” The director of the Materials Laboratory for Energy and Environmental Sustainability, Pal says, “I am also humbled that the broader scientific community, as represented by AAAS, have recognized the many years of work that my students, postdoctoral fellows and other collaborators have done in the area of green engineering.”
Pal’s lab is experimenting with a solid-state electrochemical device that can convert the chemical energy in hydrogen to electrical energy far more efficiently than gas turbines, while generating only water vapor as the byproduct. His group is also working on storing energy in metals, such as in powdered aluminum.
“One could simply oxidize the metal powder and generate large amounts of thermal energy,” Pal says. “The oxide can subsequently be reduced employing renewable electrical energy to regenerate the metal powder, releasing the oxygen back into the environment.”
Because of the intermittent nature of wind, sunlight, and water flow, Pal says that energy storage is as much a key to a sustainable future as the pursuit of those renewables. “I hope we stop pursuing fossil fuels not simply because we run out of them,” he says, “but rather because we have found better and cleaner ways to generate and store energy.”
Other AAAS fellows among ENG faculty include Professor Joyce Wong (BME, MSE), Professor Roscoe Giles (ECE), Professor Xin Zhang (ME, MSE), and Professor Emeritus Temple Smith (BME), as well as former ENG Dean David Campbell.