News Article
Doraiswamy receives Diamond Award
The Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers has presented the IIChE Diamond Award to L. K. Doraiswamy, Anson Marston Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State University and a former director of India’s National Chemical Laboratory.
According to K. Venkataramanan, president of IIChE, Doraiswamy is being honored as “one of the legends whose contributions to the profession and society at large have made IIChE, and indeed all Indian chemical engineers, glow with pride.”
The award is one of numerous honors and events being sponsored by IIChE in honor of its 60th anniversary. Doraiswamy was presented with the award during the Diamond Jubilee session of the Indian Chemical Engineering Congress, CHEMCON 2007, on December 28, 2007, at the Heritage Institute of Technology in Kolkata, India.
Doraiswamy also was honored during two sessions at the 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. “Invited Frontiers in Chemical Reaction Engineering and Catalysis: In Honor of 50 Years of Contributions of L. K. Doraiswamy” was held on November 6.
“To me personally,” Doraiswamy said, “this fall’s AIChE special sessions held in the U.S. in recognition of my contributions to chemical engineering over a career of 50 years, followed immediately by the Diamond Award of IIChE in India, have been particularly satisfying, for they represent recognitions from the two countries that mean the most to me.”
Acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of modern chemical engineering in India, Doraiswamy joined the CBE faculty at Iowa State in 1989. He earned a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Madras in India in 1946 and a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1952. Doraiswamy joined India’s National Chemical Laboratory in 1954 and retired in 1989 as the first non-chemist director before coming to Iowa State. His research centers on theoretical and experimental studies in catalytic reactions and reactors, modeling gas-solid reactions, and sonochemical reaction engineering.
Doraiswamy is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Padma Bhusham (India’s renowned state award), the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for lifetime achievement in engineering and technology, the AIChE Richard H. Wilhelm Award for Chemical Reaction Engineering, and the AIChE William H. Walker Award for excellence in contributions to the chemical engineering literature (in 2004).
