The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) announced today that Joseph D. Smith, the Laufer Energy Chair and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology and Chief Technology Officer at Elevated Analytics, will become President of AIChE in 2025. Smith succeeds 2024 President Alan E. Nelson, Vice President of Technology – New Energy at SLB (Houston, Texas). Anne O’Neal, Manager of Process Safety Culture and Competency at Chevron, will become the 2025 President-elect, and succeed Smith as AIChE President in 2026.
Julianne Holloway, an associate professor of chemical engineering at Arizona State University, will begin a three-year term as Secretary in 2025. As Secretary, Holloway succeeds MaryKathryn Lee, retired Senior Chemical Engineer at ExxonMobil Corporate Research.
Newly elected members of the AIChE Board of Directors are: Stephen P. Beaudoin, Professor in Purdue University’s Davidson School of Chemical Engineering; Jerry Forest, process safety improvement consultant at Jerry Forest, LLC; Raymond Rooks, a principal engineer at AVN Corporation; and Frank van Lier, retired Global Senior Director of Process Technology at The Lubrizol Corporation. The directors serve three-year terms.
Joseph D. Smith earned a PhD in chemical engineering at Brigham Young University, where he was an American Western University Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has served on chemical engineering faculties at Tennessee Technological University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was the founding Wayne and Gayle Laufer Endowed Energy Chair at Missouri University of Science and Technology, where he led the Energy Research and Development Center and founded the Small Nuclear Modular Reactor Research and Development Consortium.
Dr. Smith has published more than 80 papers and holds twelve patents. He has published a textbook titled Computational Fluid Dynamics for the Chemical and Petrochemical Process Industries, and has contributed chapters to the Encyclopedia of Renewable Energy Engineering; Densification Impact on Raw, Chemically and Thermally Pretreated Biomass: Physical Properties and Biofuels Production; The John Zink Combustion Handbook; The Industrial Burner Handbook; and Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook (9th Edition).
Dr. Smith has more than 30 years’ experience working in the chemical and petrochemical industries. At the Dow Chemical Company, he helped develop the LGTI Coal Gasifier, which was built and is still operating in Wabash, Indiana. Smith served as Corporate Director of Process Development for Cabot Corporation, Director of Flare Technology for the John Zink Company, and as Group Leader at Idaho National Laboratory. He currently serves as an expert witness for gas flares and hydrocarbon processing. Dr. Smith is a serial entrepreneur, having founded and led three startup companies.
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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.