The foundation of the Department

Professor John Davidson MA, PhD, ScD, FRS, FEng, FIChemE, MIMechE

John Davidson joined the Department of Chemical Engineering, Cambridge University in 1952 as a University Demonstrator. He became Professor of Chemical Engineering (Shell Professor from 1978) and Head of Department from 1975 through to his retirement in 1993. In 1999 he was awarded a Royal Medal in recognition of his distinguished work over many years in Chemical Engineering, including fluid flow, process dynamics, gas absorption and fluidization technology. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1974. He continues to be an active member of the department and supervises research in collaboration with other members of staff.

The 1990s and the changing environment

Professor John Bridgwater FREng

John was Demonstrator and Lecturer in the Department 1963-71 and returned as Shell Professor in 1993. He served as Head of Department until 1998 and retired in 2004. He was elected FREng in 1987. He was President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers 1997-1998. For 13 years, he was at the University of Birmingham as Head of Department, Dean of Engineering and leader of the Ceramics Processing Group in that University's IRC in Materials for High Performance Applications. He was Executive Editor of Chemical Engineering Science 1982 - 2003 and a member of EPSRC's Engineering Board. His research lies in Particle Technology, and since 1993 is on paste mechanics, particle attrition, and powder mixing. Work in the last area continues in collaboration with the University of New South Wales.

Undergraduate teaching: past and present

Dr Patrick Barrie

Dr Patrick Barrie is the Admissions Officer for the Department of Chemical Engineering. He is the contact person for all enquiries relating to undergraduate admissions. Dr Barrie has been revising the department's marketing material such as the undergraduate brochure on this web site. He is also responsible for arranging Open Days and visits to the Department, and is assisted in this task by the Teaching Fellow, Binjie Hu. His research interests lie in the area of how molecules behave within porous solids.

The Department: present and future

Professor Lynn Gladden OBE, FRS, FREng

Professor Lynn Gladden is the Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering and leads the Magnetic Resonance and Catalysis Group. Her main research interests are in heterogeneous catalysis and magnetic resonance studies of porous media and flow. She was awarded an OBE in 2001 for services to chemistry, the Beilby Medal and Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1995, and a Tilden Medal and Lectureship by the Royal Society of Chemistry for the year 2001/2002. She was appointed to the governing Council of EPSRC, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in 2006 and serves on the Technical Opportunities Panel of EPSRC.

Multi-scale, sustainable reaction engineering

Dr John Dennis

Dr John Dennis's area of research is concerned principally with the generation of sustainable energy, particularly in the areas of combustion, decarbonisation of gasifier gases and control of fluidised bed gasifiers.

Computational modelling in chemical engineering - From science to technology

Dr Markus Kraft

Dr. Markus Kraft, became a lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cambridge, in July 1999. He obtained the academic degree 'Diplom Technomathematiker' at the University of Kaiserslautern in 1992 and completed his Doctor rerum naturalium in Chemistry at the same University in 1997. He has been working for several years on combustion problems, numerical issues connected with Monte Carlo methods at the University of Kaiserslautern, the University of Karlsruhe, and the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics in Berlin. He is head of the computational modelling group in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He was awarded the Beilby Medal and Prize for 2006 and the Gaydon Prize in 2007.

Measurements in modern chemical engineering: from molecules to products

Dr Clemens Kaminski

Dr Kaminski obtained his PhD in 1995 from Oxford University where he worked on the development of non linear laser techniques for the study of plasmas and flames. For his PhD work he was awarded a research fellowship by Keble college Oxford, and the Legerlotz foundation research prize. In 1995 he moved to Marcus Aldén's group at the Lund Institute of Technology (Sweden), where he held an EU Marie Curie fellowship and later an Associated Professorship in Engineering Physics. At Lund he pioneered techniques for the time resolved study of fast chemical processes and began extension of these techniques towards biological applications, building the foundations for the Laser Analytics group's current research portfolio. He moved to Cambridge in 2001 where he was appointed lecturer and later Reader at the Department of Chemical Engineering. He won the Cyril Hinshelwood Prize in 2004, the Gaydon Award in 2004, and the Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2005.

The role of Chemical Engineering in Biotechnology

Professor Howard Chase, FREng

Professor Chase joined the academic staff of the department as an Assistant Lecturer in 1984. He became Professor of Biochemical Engineering in 2000 and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2005. He was Head of Department 1998 - 2006. His work in the area of biochemical engineering covers three principal topics, namely bioseparations, regenerative medicine and biological waste treatment. He is also interested in process applications of microwave heating and is co-founder and chairman of the environmental technology company, Enval Limited.

The role of Biotechnology in Chemical Engineering

Professor Chris Lowe, FREng

Christopher R. Lowe received his B.Sc and Ph.D degrees in biochemistry from the University of Birmingham in 1967 and 1970 respectively. He has conducted post-doctoral research in Liverpool and Sweden and held a lectureship/senior lectureship at the University of Southampton. He is currently Director of the Institute of Biotechnology and Professor of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of Trinity College. The principal focus of his biotechnology research programme over the last 30 years has been the high value - low volume sectors of pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals and diagnostics.

Educating Bioscience Engineers in the 21st century

Professor Nigel Slater, FREng

Professor Slater's work at the Department of Chemical Engineering falls under the Microstructure Engineering and Processes themes and he is the head of the Bioscience engineering group. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2004 and in 2006 he was appointed to the Commission on Human Medicines to advise on biological medicines and vaccines. He is also one of the team which developed an award winning cholesterol reducing cheese.

Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge

Professor Ian Leslie, VC Research

Ian Leslie is the Robert Sansom Professor of Computer Science and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College. His research interests are operating systems, distributed systems, and communication networks. He has been a member of the academic staff of the Computer Laboratory since 1983.
He co-founded two companies, Nemesys Research and CPlane, both exploiting ideas developed in his research work. From 1999 to 2004, he was Head of the Computer Laboratory, and in January 2004 became Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research for which he co-ordinates research policy and large scale research initiatives, provides the academic oversight of the handling of research grants and contracts and liaises with industrial sponsors and UK government on funding for research and technology transfer.
Photo of Prof Leslie courtesy of Simon Moore