Dr. Joan Lynam: Teaching through Projects and Play

In her three years at Louisiana Tech, Dr. Joan Lynam has built a reputation for innovative research and teaching methods. Dr. Lynam, assistant professor of chemical engineering and Louisiana Tech’s expert in biomass research, has developed a team-based teaching style that expands into her research lab.

Students who take Dr. Lynam’s courses engage in active learning, memorizing engineering equations by singing them to the tune of Star Wars songs and answering questions when their numbers come up on Dungeons & Dragons dice. Students also see theory come to life through field trips to places like the City of Ruston Wastewater Division, where they observe the results of wastewater treatment, and the Utility Brewing Company, where they learn how to make ethanol. Through these field trips, students get a clearer idea of how they can apply chemical engineering in careers outside the typical petrochemical fields.

That innovative teaching style blends into Dr. Lynam’s research. In the Louisiana Tech Biomass Research Lab, which she established using startup funds from the College, Dr. Lynam and her interdisciplinary team of students work to convert waste into energy and bioproducts. As in class, teams of two work to convert secondary agricultural products, like rice husks and coffee chaff, which are considered waste and aren’t typically recycled, into biofuels and add-ins for cement and asphalt.

Dr. Lynam has also recently worked on hydrothermal carbonization to make a solid fuel product to put in model rockets with Dr. Arden Moore. The lignin from biomass is separated out using water, rice husks, and a pressure reactor provided using College start-up funds. She says they’ve had success with this project with partial substitution of lignin for rocket fuel. She has published 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and her most recently published paper describes how adding ash from rice husks to cement can make it stronger. You can find the article on the ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering website.