November 22, 2024 | Olivia Drake - UConn College of Engineering

UConn Associate Dean Dan Burkey Elected as AIChE Fellow

Burkey serves as director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Education Division, where he oversees a mentoring program for students interested in becoming professors.

Dan Burkey

Associate Dean Dan Burkey at a recent undergraduate event. (Photo by Defining Studios).

In recognition of his “significant professional accomplishments and contributions in engineering,” the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) named Daniel D. Burkey, associate dean for undergraduate education and diversity, an AIChE Fellow.

“Fellow” is the highest grade of AIChE membership available and granted only through election by the AIChE Board of Directors. Fellows have demonstrated long-term excellence and service to the profession of chemical engineering and provide experience-based guidance to AIChE leadership and members.

The AIChE Board of Directors elected Burkey as a Fellow during the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting in San Diego, Calif. in October.

“I’m deeply honored to be recognized as an AIChE Fellow,” Burkey says. “Fellow status reflects not only my work over the years but also the incredible support and collaboration of my colleagues and students. I am grateful to AIChE for this honor and look forward to continuing my efforts in advancing engineering education and innovation.”

Burkey is a recognized leader in engineering education, both in research and in service.

Research

Burkey, who earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came to UConn in 2010. He’s currently Castleman Term Professor of Engineering Innovation and associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. His research focuses on work in game-based education, specifically in the areas of process safety and engineering ethics.

To date, he’s the author of more than 50 publications, one patent, and the recipient of the 2020 AIChE Education Division Innovation Award, the 2022 William H. Corcoran Award from the Chemical Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), and the 2023 David Himmelblau Award for Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering Education.

Service

In 2013, Burkey became associate dean for undergraduate education and diversity. Since then, he helped grow the College of Engineering (CoE)’s enrollment from 2,100 students to nearly 4,000 in 2024, and helped triple female enrollment in last decade. The incoming first-year classes are now routinely ~30% young women.

Burkey also created the CoE’s Undergraduate Teaching, Mentoring, and Leadership Program and helped develop four new areas of study: B.S.E in multidisciplinary engineering (2021), B.S.E in robotics (2022), a B.S.E in Data Science and Engineering (2023) and a Ph.D. in engineering education (2024).

At UConn, Burkey was recognized as a University Teaching Fellow in 2018 and received the Provost’s Award for Community Engaged Scholarship as a Distinguished Instructor in 2024.  Most recently, Burkey is serving as interim director of UConn’s new Engineering Education Ph.D. program, which welcomed its first cohort of students in Fall 2024.

Dan Burkey
Daniel Burkey, associate dean for undergraduate education and diversity, was recently elected an AIChE Fellow.

Since 2017, Burkey has been elected three times to serves as director of the AIChE Education Division, where he runs the division’s Future Faculty Mentoring Program. This program pairs established faculty with senior graduate students and postdocs with to support them during the faculty search process. The program has now supported more than 200 mentees and engaged more than 100 mentors and has program alumni in more than 100 faculty positions in more than 50 academic institutions worldwide.

In addition, Burkey served as a programming lead for the 2022 AIChE/ASEE Chemical Engineering Summer School, one of the signature NSF-co-sponsored professional development opportunities for new chemical engineering faculty. He’s also the assistant editor of ASEE’s Chemical Engineering Education journal.

As an AIChE Fellow, Burkey joins more than 60,000 AIChE members in 110 countries who aim to promote the chemical engineering profession and advance the knowledge of science and engineering.