This distinguished lectureship honors the memory of Richard H. Wilhelm, a graduate of Columbia University who spent his entire professional career at Princeton University. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1934 and served as chairman from 1954 until his death in 1968. In recognition of his distinguished teaching, he was named Henry Putnam University Professor by Princeton University and given the Warren K. Lewis Award in Chemical Engineering Education by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
For his research leadership in numerous areas of chemical reaction engineering, he received from the AIChE the William H. Walker Award in 1951 and the Professional Progress Award in 1952 and the Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 1966. In 1968 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the highest professional distinction that can be conferred upon an American engineer.
In 1973, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers established the R.H. Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering, presented each year to an individual in recognition of significant and new contributions in the field. The Richard H. Wilhelm Lectureship was established through the generosity of his colleagues, friends, and students.
2024 Wilhelm Lecturer: Jennifer A. Lewis
Jennifer A. Lewis is the Jianming Yu Professor of Arts and Sciences, the Wyss Professor for Biologically Inspired Engineering in the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. Her research focuses on digital assembly of soft and living matter, including vascularized human tissues for drug testing, disease modeling, and therapeutic use. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received numerous awards for her work. Multiple startups are commercializing technology from her lab ranging from drug delivery and kidney therapeutics.
Previous Lecturers in the Series
2022 | Bernhard Palsson | University of California, San Diego |
2019 |
Paula T. Hammond |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
2018 |
Joseph DeSimone |
Carbon, Inc. |
2017 |
Matthew Tirrell |
University of ChicagoArgonne National Laboratory |
2016 |
Kristi S. Anseth |
University of Colorado at Boulder |
2015 |
Ronald G. Larson |
University of Michigan |
2014 |
Enrique Iglesia |
University of California at Berkeley |
2013 |
Chaitan Khosla |
Stanford University |
2012 |
Klavs Jensen |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
2011 |
Martin Feinberg |
Ohio State University |
2010 |
Lanny Schmidt |
University of Minnesota |
2009 |
George Stephanopoulos |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
2008 |
Mark E. Davis |
California Institute of Technology |
2008 |
Frances H. Arnold |
California Institute of Technology |
2006 |
Frank S. Bates |
University of Minnesota |
2005 |
Carol K. Hall |
North Carolina State University |
2003 |
John F. Brady |
California Institute of Technology |
2002 |
William R. Schowalter |
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
2001 |
Alice P. Gast |
Stanford University |
2001 |
Charles F. Zukoski |
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
1999 |
Cherry A. Murray |
Bell LaboratoriesLucent Technologies |
1998 |
Eduardo D. Glandt |
University of Pennsylvania |
1997 |
John Villadsen |
Technical University of Denmark |
1995 |
Robert A. Brown |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
1994 |
Roger W.H. Sargent |
Imperial College of ScienceTechnologyand Medicine |
1992 |
George K. Batchelor |
Cambridge University |
1991 |
R. Byron Bird |
University of Wisconsin at Madison |
1988 |
John F. Davidson |
Cambridge University |
1987 |
George Gavalas |
California Institute of Technology |
1985 |
Reuel Shinnar |
City College of the City University of New York |
1983 |
Dan Luss |
University of Houston |
1981 |
Rutherford Aris |
University of Minnesota |
1980 |
John M. Prausnitz |
University of California at Berkeley |
1979 |
Roger A. Schmitz |
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
1978 |
Neal R. Amundson |
University of Houston |
1977 |
Jack B. Howard |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
1976 |
Michel Boudart |
Stanford University |
1975 |
L.E. Scriven |
University of Minnesota |