University of Minnesota professor will discuss innovations in materials processing at AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston, November 2–6
Satish Kumar, Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, has been chosen to present the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE’s) William R. Schowalter Lecture at the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting — set for November 2–6 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Endowed by the AIChE Foundation, the annual lectureship is named for William Schowalter, Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at Princeton University — a pioneer in the field of fluid mechanics and an influential academic leader. Reflecting Schowalter’s contributions to chemical engineering, the lecture’s subject matter alternates between topics related to fluid mechanics and is typically delivered by a speaker from academia, and topics of general interest to the profession and typically presented by a speaker from industry. This year’s lecture will focus on topics in fluid mechanics.
In his lecture on November 5, Kumar will discuss the partnership between research institutions and industry, and how those collaborations can serve as inspiration for fundamental academic research, experimentation, and problem-solving through fluid mechanics.
Satish Kumar received his undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Stanford University, all in chemical engineering. Following postdoctoral work at École Normale Supérieure and the University of Michigan, he joined the University of Minnesota faculty in 2001. His research integrates transport phenomena, colloid and interface science, rheology, and applied and computational mathematics with experiments that address fundamental issues in materials processing. He has documented his research in more than 170 journal articles, which have frequently been inspired by industrial applications such as coating and printing processes, polymer processing, nanofluidics, and energy.
Kumar is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering Mathematics, and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics. He has served as an Executive Committee member of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics, is a former president of the International Society of Coating Science and Technology, and is a member of the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He also served as Faculty Director of the University of Minnesota’s Industrial Partnership for Research in Interfacial and Materials Engineering (IPRIME), a university-industry consortium, and is currently co-director of its Coating Process Fundamentals program.
The Schowalter Lecture is a featured event at the AIChE Annual Meeting — a foremost educational forum for chemical engineers working in research and development. Additional information about the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting is available at www.aiche.org/annual.
About AIChE: AIChE is a professional society of more than 60,000 members in more than 110 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society. Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontier of chemical engineering research in such areas as nanotechnology, sustainability, hydrogen fuels, biological and environmental engineering, and chemical plant safety and security. More information about AIChE is available at www.aiche.org.