Five faculty members from Purdue's School of Chemical Engineering have been honored with prestigious American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) national and division awards for their groundbreaking contributions to the field. These distinguished individuals will receive their awards at the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting, to be held in San Diego, California, from October 27-31.

NATIONAL AWARDS

Gintaras Reklaitis – AIChE 2024 Founders Award  

Gintaras Reklaitis, the Burton and Kathryn Gedge Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, has been awarded the AIChE 2024 Founders Award, the organization’s highest honor. This prestigious award recognizes individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to the field of chemical engineering through their technical achievements and professional leadership. Reklaitis will receive a medal, plaque, and $3,000 at the Honors Ceremony during the AIChE Annual Meeting.  

Reklaitis’ research focuses on the application of computing, information, and systems technology to process design and operations, particularly in batch and semi-continuous processes. He also specializes in plant-wide planning and optimization, with extensive expertise in the pharmaceutical industry and integrated energy systems. His groundbreaking work in process systems engineering, particularly the use of digital technologies for process and product design, development, and operations, has had a transformative impact on pharmaceutical manufacturing and delivery, improving efficiency and effectiveness across the industry.  

Throughout his career, Reklaitis has received numerous accolades, including induction into the National Academy of Engineering and the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Professional Achievement Award. He has authored or co-authored over 350 papers and chapters and edited or authored 10 influential books, further cementing his influence in the field. This award recognizes his enduring contributions to advancing chemical engineering and process systems technology.

Fabio Ribeiro – R.H. Wilhelm Award  

Fabio Ribeiro, the W. Nicholas and Elizabeth H. Delgass Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center (CISTAR), and Co-Director of the Purdue Engineering Initiative on Leading Energy-Transition Advances and Pathways to Sustainability (LEAPS), has been awarded the R.H. Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering from AIChE. Sponsored by ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Company, this award honors individuals whose significant and innovative contributions to chemical reaction engineering have advanced the field through originality, creativity, and novel concepts or applications. Ribeiro will receive a plaque and a $3,000 prize at the AIChE Annual Meeting Honors Ceremony. 

Ribeiro’s research focuses on chemical reaction kinetics and the development of characterization tools for reaction engineering. His current work addresses the pressing challenge of energy transition, leveraging his findings with the collaborative efforts of CISTAR and LEAPS teams.  

Ribeiro has served as the editor for the Journal of Catalysis and chaired AIChE’s Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division. He is a fellow of AIChE, the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His achievements have been noted with many honors, most recently the 2024 Ambassador in Chemical Sciences in France, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and the 2023 Exceptional Achievement Award from the ACS Division of Catalysis Science and Technology.

DIVISION AWARDS

Rakesh Agrawal & Mohit Tawarmalani – AIChE CAST Division Computing in Chemical Engineering Award  

Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Mohit Tawarmalani, the Executive Associate Dean of Faculty and Academic Director of the Krenicki Center for Business Analytics and Machine Learning at the Mitch Daniels School of Business, have been awarded the prestigious Computing in Chemical Engineering Award from the Computing & Systems Technology (CAST) Division of AIChE. This award recognizes their significant contributions to the application of computing and systems technology in chemical engineering. Agrawal and Tawarmalani will be honored with a plaque and a monetary award at the CAST Division dinner during the AIChE Annual Meeting.

Agrawal’s research includes energy systems analysis, novel processes for the fabrication of low-cost thin-film solar cells, agrivoltaics, synthesis of efficient separation processes using distillation and membranes, biomass to liquid fuel conversion, gas separations and liquefaction, and shale gas processing. Tawarmalani specializes in nonconvex optimization algorithms and their applications in process design, network systems, and pricing.

Together, Agrawal and Tawarmalani were recognized for their development of innovative computational models, numerical algorithms, and physical insights that have advanced sustainable and energy-efficient distillation, membrane, and chemical processes with real-world impact. Their collaboration has resulted in 28 journal articles and seven published proceedings.

In addition to this recognition, Agrawal also received the 2024 E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry from ACS.  He holds 136 US patents. At Purdue, he has been honored with several top awards, including the Morrill Award, the university’s highest faculty accolade. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from the President of the United States.

Tawarmalani's accolades include the INFORMS Computing Society Prize and the Beale-Orchard Hays Prize from the Mathematical Optimization Society. He also served as the founding academic co-director for the Master's in Business Analytics and Information Management program and led the team that won the 2023 INFORMS UPS George D. Smith Prize for excellence in training operations research and analytics practitioners.

Letian Dou – NSEF Young Investigator Award  

Letian Dou, the Charles Davidson Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, has been awarded the Nanoscale Science & Engineering Forum (NSEF) Young Investigator Award. This award recognizes outstanding contributions in nanoscience and nanotechnology by an engineer or scientist within 10 years of earning their highest degree. Dou will receive a plaque and deliver a talk at the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting.  

Dou’s research focuses on the synthesis and processing of hybrid materials for next-generation energy harvesting and optoelectronic devices, with an emphasis on understanding structure-property relationships. His recent work includes advances in 2D hybrid perovskites for enhanced optoelectronic performance for solar cells and LEDs and the development of 1D nanowires from 2D metal halide perovskites for nanophotonics.  

In addition to Dou’s AIChE award, he has received several prestigious recognitions, including a Humboldt Research Fellowship in 2024, the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research, and an NSF CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation. He also received the 2022 Owens Corning Early Career Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the 2022 Rising Star Award from the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology. Dou has published over 130 research papers, garnered more than 26,000 citations, and holds sixteen patents.

Zoltan Nagy – PD2M Award for Excellence in Manufacturing

Zoltan Nagy, the Arvind Varma Professor of Chemical Engineering, has received the PD2M Excellence Award in Manufacturing, recognizing his exceptional contributions to the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. As part of this honor, he will receive a commemorative plaque and $1,500.

With 25 years of experience in advanced process control, process analytical technologies, and crystallization modeling and control, Nagy's current research centers on applying systems approaches for the design and robust control of batch and continuous crystallization systems, process analytical technologies, and integrated pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. His innovations in digital tools for crystallization and integrated particle processing systems have been adopted by major multinational companies to optimize production processes.

Nagy’s distinguished career also includes founding the Pharmaceutical Engineering section of Chemical Engineering Research and Design and serving as associate editor for four international journals focused on process control. He is an elected member of the Steering Committee of the American Association for Crystallization Technologies and the Crystallization Working Party of the European Federation of Chemical Engineers. Additionally, he served as Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Process Control. Nagy has published over 260 peer-reviewed journal articles, 300 conference papers, holds seven patents, co-founded four startup companies, and has graduated over 50 PhD students in both the UK and USA.

About AIChE

AIChE is the world's leading organization for chemical engineering professionals, with more than 60,000 members from more than 110 countries. AIChE has the breadth of resources and expertise you need whether you are in core process industries or emerging areas, such as translational medicine. Learn more at https://www.aiche.org/.