{"id":3868,"date":"2016-09-07T21:10:05","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T21:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/?p=1492"},"modified":"2019-06-12T10:24:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T15:24:01","slug":"yevgeniy-kondratenko-03-engineering-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/2016\/09\/07\/yevgeniy-kondratenko-03-engineering-excellence\/","title":{"rendered":"Yevgeniy Kondratenko ’03: Engineering Excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Dr. Yevgeniy Kondratenko \u201903, his experience in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made him realize that he had received a great undergraduate education in the \"yevgeniy-kondratenko-1\"<\/a>Department of Chemistry at Missouri Western.<\/p>\n

After graduation, Dr. Kondratenko was accepted into the PhD program in chemical engineering at the University of Illinois, which was ranked in the top 10 in the nation. He said he had to catch up a little because his undergraduate degree was in chemistry and the graduate degree was in chemical engineering. However, his hands-on lab skills made up for the slight lag.
\n\u201cIt was interesting to watch my peers from MIT, Caltech, Cornell, Stanford, and other high-ranking universities. They were definitely ahead of me in engineering theory, but they had to catch up in practical laboratory experience,\u201d Dr. Kondratenko said. \u201cMy time in Illinois definitely highlighted the strength of undergraduate education at Missouri Western. It made me appreciate all the extracurricular activities and all the laboratory work that I was able to do there.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the University of Illinois, he was named Outstanding Teaching Assistant and Outstanding Graduate Research Mentor. He also presented his research at the annual graduate research symposiums of the department and won for three consecutive years.<\/p>\n

Today, he is a process engineering subject matter expert at BP America \u2013 BP U.S. L48 Onshore in Houston. He started his career at BP as a process\/facilities engineer after earning his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois in 2009. Dr. Kondratenko noted that his job responsibilities fall into two major categories: design and troubleshooting of oil and gas equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile oil and gas has been produced for more than a century, it is still very challenging,\u201d he said. \u201cJust because everything works great today doesn\u2019t mean that a year from now everything will work just as well. Like a deflating balloon, the well is a dynamic system. Flow of fluids from the well changes all the time and we have to constantly adjust the equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

That, he says, is what keeps his job interesting and challenging. \u201cI enjoy the fact that I always have to look ahead and never solely rely on my existing knowledge and current skills. My job definitely requires embracing a lifelong learning approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he still uses the knowledge he learned at Missouri Western in his job, even pulling his undergraduate textbooks off the shelf at times to help solve a problem.<\/p>\n

At BP, Dr. Kondratenko has received three managerial awards for excellent project delivery and won a second place at BP\u2019s TechnoFest poster competition for young engineers.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kondratenko was born and raised in Belarus, a small country between Russia and Poland and north of Ukraine and spent his free time exploring nearby parks and forests with his parents, Vladimir and Yelena Kondratenko. This experience sparked his interest in learning more about science and nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom always loved to read, and I was blessed with a large library of books. In our book collection we had an encyclopedia set that covered broad areas of science and engineering. I became fascinated with physical sciences and spent countless hours reading and learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toward the end of high school, he met an American family, Rick and Patsy Hartman from Dekalb, Missouri, through the Baptist Association. They helped him come to the United States, and he enrolled at Missouri Western.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always felt a part of their family,\u201d Dr. Kondratenko said. \u201cI can definitely say that family is not limited by the family tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Kondratenko began at Missouri Western as a biology major, thinking he wanted to be a medical doctor, but he quickly realized that he really loved the research environment, and he switched to chemistry instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chemistry department had excellent equipment and small classes,\u201d he said. \u201cThe combination of small group learning, direct access to professors for help and an abundance of hands-on practical experience definitely helped me develop very strong scientific skills. Most semesters I was doing research projects with different professors trying to get a broad exposure to different areas of chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a student, Dr. Kondratenko also presented his research at a number of regional and national conferences, and he completed two summer research internships at two different universities. He also earned minors in physics, math and business while at Missouri Western.
\nAll those experiences, he says, helped him solidify his interest in pursuing a PhD in chemical engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe combination of research, Alchemist Club events, and 18 credit hours during most semesters definitely provided an excellent and diverse amount of activities,\u201d Dr. Kondratenko said. \u201cVisiting Baptist Student Union and attending Honors Program events were two nonscientific activities that I enjoyed on top of my chemical endeavors. I can definitely say I had a blast at Missouri Western!\u201d<\/p>\n

Amidst classes, labs and outside activities, Dr. Kondratenko met his wife, Lanell, at Missouri Western, and they married shortly before graduation. They have two children, London and Justin.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s in the area, Dr. Kondratenko tries to visit campus. He is impressed with all the changes, especially to the science and math facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the science and math departments were in great shape when I was at Missouri Western, but now they are absolutely phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For Dr. Yevgeniy Kondratenko \u201903, his experience in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made him realize that he had received a great undergraduate education in the Department of Chemistry at Missouri Western. After graduation, Dr. Kondratenko was accepted into the PhD program in chemical engineering at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4422,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions\/4422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}