Newsfront
Recognizing your
colleagues
Consider nominating a deserving colleague
for our 2010 Personal Achievement Award.
Entries are due April 15
I
n professional life, the influences
that teach us, inspire us and drive
us to succeed tend to come more
from individuals than corporations.
If you would like to bring recognition
to someone whose excellence in chemi-
cal engineering you admire, consider
nominating him or her for Chemical
Engineering’s 2010 Personal Achieve-
ment Award. The nomination period is
now open.
The aim of this award, which Chemi-
cal Engineering (CE) has offered bi-
ennially since 1968, is to honor indi-
viduals for distinguished careers. It
complements CE’s Kirkpatrick Award
for Chemical Engineering Achievement,
presented in the alternate years, which
honors companies — as opposed to indi-
viduals — for specific chemical-process
accomplishments (see December, p. 17).
Our Personal Achievement Awards
have saluted excellence in diverse
areas — research, development, de-
sign, plant operations, management
and other activities. The distinction
can emerge in less-ordinary ways, such
as government service. The criterion is
that the career must have related, fully
or largely, to the use of chemical engi-
neering principles in solving indus-
trial, community or other problems.
It’s easy to nominate
Submitting an award nomination is a
simple matter:
1. S
 tate the name, job title, employer
and address of the candidate.
2. P
 repare a summary, in up to about
500 words, that highlights your
nominee’s career and brings out his
20 Chemical Engineering www.che.com January 2010
W
Recent award winners
hen thinking about whom to nominate, keep
in mind that a distinguished career can take
many forms. Here, for instance, are the most re-
cent winners:
Brian W. S. Kolthammer, research fellow
at The Dow Chemical Co., may be best known
for his pioneering work in the kinetic modeling
of catalyst systems and their process adaptation
to solution, process-polymerization plants for
the manufacture of polyolefins. This work has
enabled record pacing in the successful scaleup
or her creativity and general and commercialization of new, major plastomer
and elastomer product lines.
excellence in the practice of
chemical engineering tech- Shyam Lakshmanan, group general man-
nology. At least some of the ager at See Sen Chemical Bhd & Malay-Sino
activity must have taken Chemical Industries Sdn Bhd, has been hailed as
place during the three-year the “foremost person” at his company respon-
period ending Dec. 31, 2009. sible for achieving plant capacity improvements
and water, fuel and electricity savings.
Be specific about key contri-
butions or achievements. But Henry Kister, of Fluor, has been hailed as
do not include confidential the world’s foremost authority on distillation
information in your writeup. and absorption troubleshooting. He has writ-
3. Please be sure to include your ten two widely consulted engineering books on
own name and address, in distillation, as well as over 70 articles, and has
taught courses and spearheaded symposia in
case we need to contact you.
distillation.  ❏
4. Send your nomination no
later than April 15 to:
and rank them. Based on the voting of
Nanette Santiago
these judges, we will designate one or
Chemical Engineering
more winners. Then we will inform all
110 William St., 11th floor
the nominees and nominators about
New York, NY 10038
the results of the voting.
Email: awards@che.com
An article in Chemical Engineering
We encourage you to ask others to around the end of this year will profile
provide information in support of the the winners. Around the same time,
nominee; ask them to write to us by we will present physical embodiments
April 15. Such input has often proved of the awards to these individuals.
to be decisive during the judging.
Points to keep in mind
What’s next Nominees can be from any country.
Once we receive a nomination, we will They need not hold a degree in chemi-
ask the candidate whether he or she cal engineering. But their achieve-
is willing to be considered (you may ments must have involved use of
instead do so yourself and include a chemical-engineering principles in
note to that effect in your nomination). solving problems, and part of the ac-
Meanwhile, we might take any steps tivity must have been in 2007 – 2009.
that seem called for to verify the ac- The Personal Achievement Award
complishments stated in the brief or has been hailed and respected since
the supporting letters. its inception. We welcome your nomi-
Next, we will send all the nomina- nation, to help us maintain this worth-
tions to a panel of senior chemical en- while activity. ■
gineering educators, who will evaluate Rebekkah Marshall