Colin Lehman-Chong

Biography

Dr. Lehman-Chong received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tulsa in 2014 and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023. In-between, he worked as a process engineer for the Ross Group in Tulsa, OK, doing natural gas plant design and safety engineering work. He joined the faculty of Washington State University in 2023 as a Career Track Assistant Professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering.

Education

• Ph.D., Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 2023.
• B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Tulsa, 2014.

Teaching Interests

After spending several years in the natural gas industry, I noticed two areas of chemical engineering education that could be improved to better equip newly graduating seniors for industry careers: 1) process safety and 2) instrumentation and controls. Process safety has blossomed into a full-time career focus for many practicing chemical engineers but only recently has become a required course in many chemical engineering curricula. Even for chemical engineers that do not work in process safety, it is useful to emphasize the critical place that a positive safety culture needs to have in the engineering workplace. My other teaching interest is increasing student literacy in the area of instrumentation and controls engineering. These engineers work at the intersection of chemical and electrical engineering and require skills outside of the general chemical engineering curriculum. I am working to develop ways to integrate these skills into upper-level design courses.