Steven Chavez’s path to chemical engineering started with a teacher, Kelly Silva. “You have a knack for this,” Silva told him one day after chemistry class. She moved him into her advanced chemistry course and urged him to work hard. Now Chavez is at the University of California, Los Angeles, studying catalysts—materials that facilitate chemical processes. Catalysts are used frequently in industries such as petroleum and agriculture to give us plastics, fertilizers, and other drivers of modern..