Since 1993, the Moulton Awards have recognized department alumni who have made exceptional contributions in industry, academia, government, or public service

Distinguished Alumnus in Industry

Ray Marzullo (B.S. ’69)

Vice President, Customer Support for the Americas, Boeing Commercial Airplanes (retired)

Ray retired from the Boeing Company in 2010 after serving as VP of Customer Support for the Americas in the commercial airplanes division. Previous roles in his 22 years at Boeing include VP of Flight Services, Director of Flight Training and Director of Service Engineering.

Ray’s career was multifaceted; he also applied his ChemE training to the pulp and paper industry and to active military service. After graduating from UW, Ray served in the U.S. Navy as a Naval Aviator for eight years and earned an M.S. in aeronautical systems during that time. From there, he transitioned to serving in the Naval Reserve and took on a more traditional ChemE role as a process engineer with Procter & Gamble. He later accepted a position with the Scott Paper Company. Ray says one of his proudest professional achievements came during his seven years at Scott. In 1985 and 1986, when he was general manager of the Scott plant in Fort Edward, NY, it was named the best managed plant in the company.

When Scott Paper was acquired by Kimberly-Clark, Ray decided to turn back to his passion for aviation. He was hired at Boeing as a flight crew instructor, having kept his piloting skills current in the Reserves. As he moved up in the company to manage more processes, data, and people, he saw the critical importance of soft skills. Further, he could apply analytical thinking from his ChemE training to any role. “You may not be working on a chemical reaction,” he says, “but the process of solving problems in most disciplines is the same.”

In 2017, Ray and his wife, Kaye, endowed a scholarship for ChemE students. Recognizing the demands placed on military members and their families, the Marzullo Scholarship supports students who are affiliated with the U.S. military, or are children or spouses of military members. “I felt strongly about giving back because I went through college fully financially supported [through ROTC],” Ray says. “I was lucky, and I want to give that opportunity to someone else.”

Distinguished Alumnus in Academia

Barry Lutz (Ph.D. ’03)

Associate Professor of Bioengineering, University of Washington

Barry is a nationally recognized leader in microfluidic physics and its applications to point-of-care diagnostics. Among his many innovations in biotechnology is a system that couples a low-cost microfluidic device to a cell phone, such that simple tones from the phone control a lab-on-a-chip device. Also, in collaboration with a pediatric neurologist and a local biotech CEO, he launched the company Aqueduct Neurosciences to engineer a more-reliable pediatric brain drainage shunt for patients with hydrocephalus.

Barry’s group in the UW bioengineering department is a key contributor to the Seattle Flu Study, a multi-institution effort to better detect, monitor, and control outbreaks in the city. With the emergence of COVID-19 in the United States in early 2020, the organization spun off the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN) to apply their expertise to the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. The Lutz group quickly ramped up efforts to produce thousands of test kits. They also began work on a rapid at-home COVID-19 test. The method builds off of the group’s work on a simple device originally designed for detecting drug resistance in HIV or diagnosing flu from a nasal swab.

While in UW ChemE, Barry received the D.D. & Sylvia M. Drowley Fellowship and the Jane & Joseph McCarthy Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching. Subsequently, he completed a postdoc at the UW’s Microscale Life Sciences Center, investigating the dissimilar behavior of genetically-identical cells. His accolades include the UW Bioengineering Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, the American Vacuum Society Young Investigator Award, the Pilcher Faculty Fellowship for translational research, and a UW CoMotion Presidential Innovation Fellowship.