Advisory Board

Jennifer Garfield is from Boone, Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1991, where she was involved in Marching Band, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Kappa sorority.  In the Chemical Engineering department, she was also a teaching and research assistant for Professor Murhammer.   Jen has been with ExxonMobil Chemical Company for 27+ years, starting as a process engineer at the Baytown, Texas manufacturing  facility.   She has held varying positions in steam cracking and aromatics processes, which included a 3 year assignment in Singapore to support the construction and startup of a $2B chemical complex (2001).  Jen also spent several years in quality management systems / ISO9001, business process management, and driving/implementing IT projects to support the business and our customers.   She is currently the lead product integrity advisor, providing global expertise on Product data Lifecycle Management (PLM) processes, and associated digital enablement.

Jen and her husband, Rich, live in Houston, Texas and have a son & daughter.  She has served on the University of Iowa CBE Advisory Board since 2014.
 

Aaron Morrow (BS Chemical Engineering, Iowa '04 and MBA, Iowa '15) began his career with Johnson Manufacturing Company in Princeton, Iowa as Production Manager.  After eight years he advanced to Technical Sales Manager and returned to Iowa for his MBA. He is currently the General Manager of Johnson Manufacturing and is the President of the Board for NARSA: The International Heat Transfer Trade Association.  

Aaron and his wife Lisa live in Davenport with their two daughters.  Aaron is an avid runner, a season ticket holder for Hawkeye Wrestling, serves on the board for Acacia Fraternity at Iowa and has served on the University of Iowa CBE Advisory Board since 2016.

Mark is a Senior Principal Engineer at General Mills, Inc. where he designs food processing systems.   Mark's roles include equipment design, analytical method development, process control, intellectual property management, and regulatory affairs.  

Mark is a prolific inventor working in diverse fields including coffee roasting, robotics, machine vision, packaging equipment, fats and oils production, grain processing, and analytical chemistry.  He has nine United States patents and many employer-recognized trade secrets.  He received the General Mills Inventor of the Year award and was an invited speaker at PITTCON 2019. 

Mark received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from The Ohio State University in 1996.  In addition to his service on the advisory board, Mark is former chair of the Upper Midwest Section of AIChE.
 

Karen Haman
Iowa State University

William (Bill) Liechty is the University Collaboration Scientist in External Technology, Core R&D at the Dow Chemical Company. In this role, Bill provides strategic oversight of Dow’s university project portfolio.

He is responsible for ensuring a robust pipeline of innovation projects with leading universities by identifying promising technologies, scouting new partners, and by selecting, shaping, and executing collaborative projects to deliver value to Dow. Bill joined Dow in 2013 and was responsible for process development in the novel Designed Particle Morphology (DPM) platform technology in the METHOCEL™ cellulose ether product line. Bill led the process to deepen understanding of relationships between process, particle properties, and product application performance for new cellulose ether products with novel size and shape combinations, including METHOCEL™ DC2 and WELLENCE™ SmartFry.

He also collaborated closely with cross-functional business teams to drive a new portfolio of innovation and asset flexibility opportunities in the DPM platform. Bill has co-authored over 14 internal research publications, 10 peer-reviewed journal articles, and presented at numerous domestic and international conferences. He is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and has recently been recognized as a recipient of the “35 Under 35” AIChE Award. Bill received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2013, earned an M.Phil in Chemical Engineering as a Gates Scholar at Cambridge Univeristy in 2008, and received a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Iowa in 2007.

Stacy Ross
Bayer Animal Health

Tim received his BS (1986) and PhD (1992) from the University of Iowa’s chemical and biochemical engineering department and is currently retired.  He worked for Monsanto and Emerald (former B.F. Goodrich Chemical Company) in various process engineering roles and then went on to lead a variety of businesses ranging in size from $100 million to $1 billion.  In addition to the Advisory Board, Tim has acted as an industry expert during Senior Project Design presentations and has served as a judge for several department and engineering college poster presentations.

Tim received his PhD from the University of Iowa in 2006, completing his studies and research in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering under the advisement of Prof. C. Allan Guymon.  At Iowa, Tim was recognized by the department with the Kammermeyer Research Award, the Vetter Service Award, and named “Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor” by the University.  Subsequently, Tim completed post-doctoral research and enjoyed a ten year career at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) where he led the Structured Optical Materials and Processes Research Team.  In July of 2018, Tim left AFRL to join the faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. 

Tim has published more than 140 peer reviewed contributions and has been recognized with early career achievement awards from the U.S. Air Force, SPIE, and Materials Research Society.