Professor John G. Ekerdt Elected AIChE Director
John G. Ekerdt, associate dean for research in the Cockrell School of Engineering and the Dick Rothwell Endowed Chair in Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, was recently elected as a director of The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).
Ekerdt’s research interests include growth and properties of barrier thin films; kinetics and interface chemistry of silicon-germanium alloy nanocrystal dot growth from hydrides; precursor chemistry in thin film growth; thin film and quantum dot self-assembly at interfaces; growth and properties of dielectric films; kinetics and chemistry of biomass conversion.
He has held several administrative posts within and outside the university, including Department of Chemical Engineering graduate advisor from 1985-90 and department chair from 1997-2005. He served as associate director of the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center at the university from 1999-2001 and chaired AIChE’s Chemical Technology Operating Council in 2009. He has authored more than 230 publications, two books and three book chapters, and five U.S. patents. He has supervised more than 39 Ph.D. and 7 M.S. students.
His professional awards include the AIChE Charles M.A. Stine Award in Materials Science and Engineering (2001); the Joe J. King Professional Engineering Achievement Award from The University of Texas at Austin (2005); and he was elected as an AIChE Fellow in 2006.
Also recently elected to three year terms as AIChE directors were: John Cirucci, senior engineering associate at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., in Allentown, Pennsylvania; Jack Hipple, principal with Innovation-TRIZ in Tampa, Florida; and Rosemarie D. Wesson, program director of the Chemical and Biological Separations Program at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia.
About AIChE:
AIChE, founded in 1908, is a professional association of 40,000 chemical engineers in 92 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society.