Department Personnel
Faculty Honors
The faculty within the Department of Chemical Engineering is an outstanding group of scholars whose interests span virtually all areas of chemical engineering research. Many have been recognized with awards from national and international organizations for their research contributions.
2008 honors
- Rob Rioux hired as Friedrich G. Helfferich Assistant Professor. Rob also received the Council of International Association of catalysis Societies Young Scientist Award at the International Catalysis Congress in Korea.
- Jong-in Hahm received the 2008 PROGRESS / Dreyfus Lectureship Award from the ACS.
- Antonios Armaou co-authored book on Control and Optimization of Multiscale Process Systems.
- Costas Maranas inducted as Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers.
- Andrew Zydney appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Membrane Science.
- Themis Matsoukas received George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching (one of only 4 faculty recognized at Penn State).
- Bob Nedwick received faculty award from ConocoPhillips for outstanding contributions to teaching in process design and safety (one of 5 awards in U.S., included $50,000 cash prize).
2007 honors
- Patrick Cirino was elected a councilor of the Institute of Biological Engineering (I.B.E.).
- Michael Pishko was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineers. On August 13, 2007 Dr. Pishko started is new position as Head of the Chemical Engineering Department at Texas A&M University.
- Costas Maranas received the Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the AIChE Computing and Systems Technology Division and Stratis V. Sotirochos Lectureship at the 2007 Pan-Hellenic Scientific Conference in Chemical Engineering held in Athens.
- Themis Matsoukas has been promoted to the rank of Full Professor.
- Seong Kim has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor.
- The Penn State Engineering Society (P S E S) selected Ali Borhan to receive the 2007 Premier Teaching Award and Ron Danner to recieve the Distinguished Service Award.
- Antonios Armaou and Patrick Cirino recieved Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards from the National Science Foundation. The Department is one of only two institutions in the U.S. to have 2 faculty in Chemical Engineering recieve CAREER Awards in 2007.
2006 honors
- Henry Foley named Interim Dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology in July 2006.
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Themis Matsoukas recieved the
Penn State Engineering Society Outstanding Teaching Award in March 2006.
Recipients of past P.S.E.S. Awards include Professors Robert Danner, Tom Daubert, J. Larry Duda, Kristen Fichthorn, Themis Matsoukas, R. Nagarajan, M. Albert Vannice, and James Vrentas.
2005 honors
- Costas Maranas named the first Donald Broughton Professor of Chemical Engineering in September 2005.
Other Awards
- Professors J. Larry Duda and James Vrentas jointly received the William H. Walker Award and the Charles M. A. Stine Award from AIChE for their outstanding research contributions to studies of diffusion in polymer systems.