The Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing (NAE) has elect­ed 65 new mem­bers and nine for­eign asso­ciates, Elec­tion to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing is among the high­est pro­fes­sion­al dis­tinc­tions accord­ed to an engi­neer. Acad­e­my mem­ber­ship hon­ors those who have made out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to “engi­neer­ing research, prac­tice, or edu­ca­tion, includ­ing, where appro­pri­ate, sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the engi­neer­ing lit­er­a­ture,” and to the “pio­neer­ing of new and devel­op­ing fields of tech­nol­o­gy, mak­ing major advance­ments in tra­di­tion­al fields of engi­neer­ing, or developing/implementing inno­v­a­tive approach­es to engi­neer­ing education.”

Two in our catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty include

• Enrique Igle­sia, Chan­cel­lor Pro­fes­sor, depart­ment of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. For out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the under­stand­ing of cat­a­lyst struc­ture-func­tion rela­tion­ships, the devel­op­ment of nov­el cat­a­lysts, and lead­er­ship in the field of catalysis.
• Rut­ger Antho­ny van San­ten, pro­fes­sor, depart­ment of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing and chem­istry, Eind­hoven Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Eind­hoven, Nether­lands. For pio­neer­ing work on the fun­da­men­tals of reac­tion mech­a­nisms in het­ero­ge­neous catalysis.

More about Enrique Igle­sia — Chancellor’s Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Enrique Igle­sia has been elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing (NAE). Igle­sia was elect­ed “for out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the under­stand­ing of cat­a­lyst struc­ture-func­tion rela­tion­ships, the devel­op­ment of nov­el cat­a­lysts, and lead­er­ship in the field of catal­y­sis.” Igle­sia has been involved in stud­ies of het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts for the direct and indi­rect con­ver­sion of methane to high­er hydro­car­bons, uses of light alka­nes in desul­fu­r­iza­tion and de-NOx, reac­tions, dehy­dro­gena­tion of light alka­nes to alkenes and aro­mat­ics, cat­alyt­ic reform­ing and crack­ing process­es, low-tem­per­a­ture iso­mer­iza­tion, alky­la­tion, and com­bus­tion reactions.

Igle­sia, who was born in Cuba, earned his B.S. at Prince­ton and his M.S. (1979) and Ph.D. (1982) from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. He was a Research Asso­ciate and Sec­tion Head of Catal­y­sis Sci­ence at the Cor­po­rate Research Lab­o­ra­to­ries of Exxon Research and Engi­neer­ing Co. before join­ing the Berke­ley fac­ul­ty in 1993. He is also a Fac­ul­ty Sci­en­tist at the Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Vice Pres­i­dent of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, Edi­tor-in-Chief of the Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis and the direc­tor of the Berke­ley Catal­y­sis Center. 

Iglesia’s recent awards include the Hum­boldt Senior Sci­en­tist Research Award (2007); the Don­ald Ster­ling Noyce Prize for Excel­lence in Under­grad­u­ate Teach­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia (2005); Ipati­eff Pro­fes­sor­ship, North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty (2005); Robert Bur­well Award of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (2005); and the George A. Olah Award in Hydro­car­bon Chem­istry of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety (2005).

Igle­sia was among 65 new mem­bers and nine for­eign asso­ciates elect­ed to the NAE. This brings the total U.S. mem­ber­ship of NAE to 2,227 and the num­ber of for­eign asso­ciates to 194.
 
Acknowl­edge­ment to the Univ. of Calif., Berke­ley, Col­lege of Chem­istry website,http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/Publications/news/2008/iglesia_national_academy.html.