At its annual meeting held recently in Philadelphia, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) presented awards to 14 leaders and innovators in the chemical engineering field, according a press statement released by the association.

AIChE bestowed its highest honor, the Founder’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Chemical Engineering, to four recipients this year:  Dr. Morton M. Denn of the City College of the City University of New York; Dr. Robert S. Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Dr. Donald R. Paul and Dr. Nicholas A. Peppas, both of the University of Texas at Austin.

AIChE also honored the following chemical engineers:

• Dr. James C. Hill, University professor and Chair at Iowa State University, Regional Editor of Fluid Dynamics Research, and former AIChE Board of Directors member, received the F.J. and Dorothy Van Antwerpen Award for Service to the Institute.
• Dr. Pablo G. Debenedetti, Vice Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University and prior winner of the Professional Progress Award from AIChE, was presented the William H. Walker Award for Excellence in Contributions to Chemical Engineering Literature.
• Dr. Michael S. Strano, Charles and Hilda Roddey associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow and member of the editorial board at the international journal Carbon, received the Allan P. Colburn Award for Excellence in Publications by a Young Member of the Institute.
• Dr. Jeffrey Alan Hubbell, Professor Ordinarius of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Integrative Biosciences Institute at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, researcher of biomaterials with applications in tissue engineering and pharmaceuticals, received the Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research.
• Dr. Benny Freeman, Kenneth A. Kobe Professor in Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, and researcher of the relationship between polymer structure, processing and properties, was presented the Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology.
• Dr. Chaitan Khosla, Chair of chemical engineering, Stanford University, garnered the Professional Progress Award for Outstanding Progress in Chemical Engineering. This award goes to an individual who has made significant contributions to chemical engineering before the age of 45.
• Dr. Lisa Brannon-Peppas, founder of Biogel Technology, inventor of NanoDeliver technology for cancer treatment, and former AIChE director, received the Award in Chemical Engineering Practice.
• Dr. Michael T. Klein, Dean of Engineering and Board of Governors Professor at Rutgers, was presented the R.H. Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering; and
• Drs. Julian C. Smith and Peter Harriott both received the Warren K. Lewis Award for Chemical Engineering Education. Smith completed 40 years of service to Cornell University by guiding the school through a period of unprecedented growth, increasing the emphasis on research and greatly expanding the graduate program.  Harriott was the Fred H. Rhodes Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering for 26 of his 48 years at Cornell, and published one of the first control texts written for chemical engineers.