Dr. Rakesh Agrawal

Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Davidson School of Chemical Engineering
Purdue University

 

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Dr. Rakesh Agrawal is the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. He formerly worked at Air Products and Chemicals, where he rose to the highest technical position of Air Products Fellow. His research includes novel processes for the fabrication of low-cost thin-film solar cells, energy systems analysis, shale gas processing, biomass to liquid fuel conversion, synthesis of efficient separation processes using distillation and membranes, gas separations and liquefaction, and agrivoltaics. He holds 138 U.S. patents, has published 301 technical papers, and has given 300 invited lectures. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Inventors, and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He is a proud recipient of the Shreve Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the Philip C. Wankat Graduate Teaching Award from Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. He received chemical engineering degrees from IIT Kanpur, the University of Delaware, and MIT. His honors include the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from the President of the United States of America.

 

In the Fall of 2004, I arrived at Purdue after an industrial career in conventional chemical engineering, including gas separations, cryogenics, refrigeration, and hydrogen production. To my surprise, my long industrial career had not prepared me for what was expected from an academic researcher. There was an urgent need to reinvent myself, and I quickly realized Forney Hall was just the right place to do so. Some of my graduate students played pivotal roles in setting the direction of my research. This, coupled with the collaboration with some of my expert colleagues, has made the research immensely enjoyable. I became part of a research journey that still seems like a dream. In this talk, I will describe some of those key events and the research that they led to. I will briefly highlight my group’s research on solar, biofuels, energy systems, separations, and agrivoltaics.