AIChE Honors Innovators In Chemical Engineering

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers presented several awards during its annual meeting in Nashville last November.

Genencor received the inaugural Sustainable Energy Award in recognition of its creation and commercialization of Accellerase, an enzyme that hydrolyzes biomass. The award recognizes individuals, teams, or companies who have made a significant contribution to alternative energy development, generation, and use.

Henry Z. Kister, a senior fellow and director of fractionation technology at engineering and construction firm Fluor in Aliso Viejo, Calif., received the Founders Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Chemical Engineering. This is the highest honor AIChE bestows on members who have had an important impact on chemical engineering and whose achievements have advanced the profession.

Other award winners include Andre R. Da Costa, engineering manager at Chevron, who took home the F. J. & Dorothy Van Antwerpen Award for Service to the Institute; James A. Dumesic, Steenbock Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who won the William H. Walker Award for Excellence in Contributions to Chemical Engineering Literature; Yi Tang, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was given the Allan P. Colburn Award for Excellence in Publications by a Young Member of the Institute; James C. Liao, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA who won the Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research; Jerry Y. S. Lin, a professor of chemical engineering at Arizona State University, Tempe, who took home the Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology; Kristi S. Anseth, a distinguished professor at the University of Colorado who was given the Professional Progress Award for Outstanding Progress in Chemical Engineering; Jeffrey J. Siirola, a technology fellow at Eastman Chemical who won the Lawrence B. Evans Award in Chemical Engineering Practice; Isaac C. Sanchez, William J. Murray Jr. Endowed Chair of Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, who received the Award for Service to Society; Raymond J. Gorte, Russell P. & Elizabeth C. Heuer Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, who took home the R. H. Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering; and Lorenz T. Biegler, Ignacio E. Grossmann, and Arthur W. Westerberg of Carnegie Mellon University, who all won the Warren K. Lewis Award for Chemical Engineering Education.