IChemE celebrates a hat-trick of WCEC Award winners

Three IChemE members have been selected as winners of the prestigious World Chemical Engineering Council Awards. Andrew Livingston will take home a Lifetime Achievement Award, Claire Adjiman a Research Excellence Award, and Serene Lock Sow Mun a Young Researcher Award.

Andrew Livingston FIChemE, VP (Research and Innovation) at Queen Mary University of London - Andrew is one of three winners of the WCEC Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Andrew was recognised for his pioneering work on polymer membranes for organic nanofiltration, enabling the separation of liquid mixtures based on molecular size. where he combines academic work with industrial applications. “In addition to advancing fundamental knowledge, Andrew has played a key role in the commercialization of membrane technologies for industrial applications—both as a scientist and an entrepreneur. Few membranologists have made such substantial contributions to both scientific understanding and technological development,” commented Jerry Lin, Regent’s Professor of Chemical Engineering at Arizona State University.

Livingston told IChemE: “I am delighted to receive this award from the WCEC, which is a tremendous honour for me. I have been a chemical engineer all my professional life and have worked with fantastic colleagues who have all, in different ways, inspired and motivated me, and any success I have enjoyed should be attributed to them. Especially to those who have worked with me in my research group, my companies, and on collaborative projects – I thank you all, and look forward to more research and innovation!”

Alongside Andrew, Robert Langer was also selected as a winner of the WCEC Lifetime Achievement Award and is frequently cited as the world’s most influential chemical engineer due to his foundational role in controlled drug release and tissue engineering, and Sun Lili, chief scientist at Chinese oil major Sinopec.

Claire Adjiman FIChemE, Director of the Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering at Imperial College London – Claire is a world leader in molecular-level process design. Her research bridges quantum chemistry and process systems engineering to optimise chemical processes from first principles. Her 2017 paper Computer-aided molecular design of solvents for accelerated reaction kinetics, published in Nature Chemistry, integrating the latest advances in computational chemistry into a comprehensive optimisation framework and achieved the holy grail of solvent design, to directly improve reactions.

She was recently awarded the 2025 Danckwerts Lecture, which she will give in Lisbon in September, and is Editor in Chief of the IChemE/RSC journal Molecular Systems Design and Engineering.

Adjiman said: "I am truly honoured to have been selected for a WCEC Research Excellence Award. This is a recognition of the collective effort of an outstanding research team over many years so I am especially delighted that the award will give me the opportunity to present our recent progress at the forthcoming World Congress on Chemical Engineering."

Adjiman was awarded the Research Excellence Award alongside Yi Cui, who leads pioneering research into nanomaterials for energy storage at Stanford University, and Hongbin Cao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a pioneer in green processing and resource recycling.

Serene Lock MIChemE is a Senior Lecturer at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS - a decorated innovator in computational tools for decarbonisation, Serene has developed patented computational tools applied in the oil and gas sector for real-time emissions reduction and process optimisation. Her innovations have won over 30 national and international awards.

She said: “There is a quote by Steve Jobs that resonates deeply with me: ‘Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.’ I see this as a challenge to not replicate the footsteps of others, and an invitation to contribute something uniquely from my own perspective. Thank you, IChemE, for your continued support in advancing innovation in chemical engineering education, research, and practice.”

Lock receives the Young Researcher Award alongside Shusaku Asano of Kyushu University, Japan, specialising in microreactor technology and heterogeneous catalysis; Xiang Chen of Tsinghua University, China, a specialist in AI-assisted materials design for next-generation batteries and one of the youngest Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers globally; Grazia Leonzio of University of Cagliari, Italy, a specialist on CO2 utilisation, biogas upgrading, and CCUS supply chain optimisation; and Xiaonan Wang of Tsinghua University, who focuses on AI-driven design of chemical materials and processes for advanced modelling, optimisation, and carbon neutrality.

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Chemical, biochemical and process engineering is the application of science, mathematics and economics in the process of turning raw materials into everyday, and more specialist, products. Professional chemical engineers design, construct and manage process operations all over the world. Energy, pharmaceuticals, food and drink, synthetic fibres and clean drinking water are just some of the industry sectors and products where chemical engineering plays a central role.

IChemE

The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) advances chemical engineering's contribution for the benefit of society. We facilitate the development of chemical engineering professionals and provide connections to a powerful network of around 32,000 members in more than 100 countries.

We support our members in applying their expertise and experience to make an influential contribution to solving major global challenges, and are the only organisation permitted to award Chartered Chemical Engineer status and Professional Process Safety Engineer registration.