AIChE past president awarded Honorary Fellowship

Hank Kohlbrand, immediate past president of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship by IChemE in recognition of his contribution to the process industries both in his capacity at AIChE and the Dow Chemical Company.

The Fellowship was presented to Kohlbrand by IChemE president Desmond King in Chicago, US at the AIChE Spring meeting last month. Kohlbrand is the retired global R&D director for the Dow Chemical Company and was responsible for the company’s process sciences, reaction engineering, modelling, fluid mechanics & mixing, process separations and solids processing.

Kohlbrand is a Fellow of AIChE, a member of ACS (American Chemical Society) and AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science).  He received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology.

Kohlbrand said: “I am honored and pleased to receive this honorary Fellowship from IChemE.  I have known and worked with a number of IChemE Fellows over the years and am humbled to be part of this community. I believe that professional institutions in chemical engineering have much to contribute to the world.”

“Critical areas such as energy, water, nutrition, health, and infrastructure continue to benefit from contributions by chemical engineers and our professional institutions help to focus our attention on challenges where we can make the largest impacts. I have appreciated the leadership of IChemE as well as AIChE in advancing the profession of chemical engineering and I look forward to forging a closer working relationship between both institutions.”

IChemE ceo, David Brown added: “The award of honorary fellowship is a fitting tribute to Hank’s high profile career in chemical engineering. IChemE has a growing base of around 1000 members in the US and we are keen to provide a better range of services to our American members.”

“By working closely with our partners at the AIChE and the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering we have established a working party, consisting of senior members from each organisation to identify ways and means of working better together for the chemical and process industries, for example reciprocal rates for all members across a shared events calendar.”

Honorary fellowships are reserved for distinguished individuals from the chemical and process industries that have made significant contributions to their field.  An Honorary fellowship is the most senior award of the Institution and has always been awarded sparingly; there are currently less than 50 IChemE Honorary fellows from a global membership of 32,000.