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The 2009 John A. Quinn Lecture in Chemical Engineering

Robert A. Brown
President, Boston University

"A 21st Century View of Chemical Engineering"

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
3:00 p.m.
Wu and Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall
a reception will follow the lecture

Abstract

     Chemical Engineering was born in the late 19th century from the rapidly expanding sciences of physical and synthetic chemistry and the need for new type of engineer who was prepared to apply these principles to the burgeoning petrochemical and energy industries.  From this beginning chemical engineering has evolved into one of the premier engineering disciplines, with a rich history of both academic and industrial impact.  Industrially, the modern methods of manufacturing of carbon-based fuels and bulk petrochemicals owe their development to chemical engineers, as do the processes for specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and polymers. In the last quarter century, the impact of chemical engineering has become increasingly diversified into other applications, such of optoelectronic materials and devices, environmental remediation, biotechnology, and human health.  Simultaneously our academic emphases have shifted toward the applied sciences and away from the engineering principles that formed the roots of the discipline.
     A decade into the 21st century, is an opportune time to ask the question, are chemical engineers as relevant today as in our past?   After a brief review of the history of chemical engineering, I will attempt to answer this question and will offer some advice for maximizing our impact going forward.

Robert A. Brown

          Dr. Robert A. Brown, a distinguished scholar of chemical engineering and an innovative leader in higher education, became the tenth president of Boston University in September 2005.
          A native of Texas, he earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota.
          As president of Boston University, Dr. Brown has emphasized the strengthening of undergraduate education, graduate and professional education, interdisciplinary work, and research and scholarship across the entire university. He initiated a strategic planning process that culminated in a plan that defines a number of goals to be met over a ten-year period in order to establish Boston University as one of the great large private research universities in the world.
          Prior to his appointment at Boston University, Dr. Brown was provost and Warren K. Lewis Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has published over 250 papers in areas related to mathematical modeling of transport phenomena in materials, and served as executive editor of the Journal of Chemical Engineering Science from 1991 to 2004.
          Dr. Brown is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Sciences, among other professional societies. He has served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and currently is a director of the DuPont Company and a trustee of the Aalto University Foundation in Finland. Dr. Brown is chairman of the Academic Research Council of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Singapore, a key funding body for academic research in that country, and he also serves on the Board of Singapore’s National Research Foundation.

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This distinguished lecture honors John A. Quinn

John Quinn's distinguished career in chemical and biomolecular engineering spans over forty-four years, during which he played a leadership role in research, education and institutional and professional service. In the course of his pioneering research on mass transfer and interfacial phenomena, John and his students devised a number of simple yet elegant experiments to elucidate the role of the interface in transfer between phases. In later years his work focused on problems relating to bioengineering and biotechnology, to transport through synthetic membranes and to their application of membranes in chemical processes and in systems of medical and biological relevance. He is author or co-author of about one hundred research papers and review articles.
      John Quinn received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1954 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1958, when he returned to Illinois to join the faculty. In 1971 he moved to Penn and in 1978 he was named the first recipient of the Robert D. Bent endowed professorship. He served as Chairman of the Department from 1980 to 1985. Among other appointments, he has held an NSF senior postdoctoral fellowship and has been visiting professor at Imperial College, London, visiting scientist at MIT, Sherman Fairchild Scholar at Caltech and visiting professor at the University of Rome.
     In recognition of his research contributions, John received the Colburn Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 1966 and the Institute's Alpha Chi Sigma Award in 1978. He delivered the Mason Lectures at Stanford, the Katz Lectureship at Michigan and the Reilly Lectures at Notre Dame. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering in 1978 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992. He was the inaugural 1995 Alan S. Michaels Lecturer in Biological and Biomedical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as Carnegie Mellon University's 1997 Distinguished Research Lecturer in Chemical Engineering. He has served as a member of several commissions and boards operating under the auspices of the National Research Council, including the Engineering Research Board, the Board of Chemical Sciences and Technology, the Committee on Separation Science and Technology and the Amundson Committee on Chemical Engineering Frontiers.
      During his long career, John taught hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students, supervised over forty doctoral dissertations and mentored numerous junior colleagues. His former graduate students, four of whom have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, populate the most distinguished ranks of their profession. John's standards of scholarly excellence, his innate appreciation for creativity and his deep humanity have left an indelible mark in the work and in the lives of those around him.

Previous John A. Quinn Lecturers