Introducing Some of AIChE’s Recently Elected Fellows

Joseph Bays, P.E., is Licensing Technology Manager for Eastman Chemical Co., having started with Eastman in 1984. In his role, he provides technical input on projects in which Eastman is technology licensee or licensor. Additionally, he has helped to start up Eastman’s acetic acid 

plants in the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan, and he has piloted several Eastman technologies, including molecular plastic recycling. He is a longtime leader of AIChE’s East Tennessee Local Section and mentors chemical engineering students. He earned his BS from Virginia Tech and his MS from the Univ. of Tennessee — both in chemical engineering.

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Richard M. Felder is the Hoechst Celanese Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State Univ. After earning his PhD in chemical engineering at Princeton Univ., he worked for the U.K.’s Atomic Energy Research Establishment and Brookhaven National Lab before joining NC State in 1969. He is coauthor of the widely used textbook Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes, as well as Teaching and Learning STEM: A Practical Guide. He has also authored or coauthored more than 300 papers on chemical process engineering and engineering education, and has presented hundreds of invited talks and courses worldwide. He is a recipient of AIChE’s Warren K. Lewis Award for Chemical Engineering Education.

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Senyo Opong is Engineering Director at DuPont, where he is responsible for strategic leadership and stewardship of the company’s critical engineering competencies, the Field Engineering and Supply Chain Development Program, and the Capital Center of Excellence. He has served in leadership roles in engineering, R&D, and manufacturing technology. An advisory board member of AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) and a member of the Minority Affairs Committee, he also coordinates DuPont’s involvement with AIChE’s RAPID Manufacturing Institute and the Process Development Symposium. He also supports initiatives to increase the representation of minorities in engineering.

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Bernhard O. Palsson is the Y. C. Fung Endowed Chair in Bioengineering, the Principal Investigator of the Systems Biology Research Group, and Professor of Pediatrics at the Univ. of California, San Diego. He is also CEO of the Novo Nordisk Center for Biosustainability (Denmark) and was previously on the faculty of the Univ. of Michigan. His research includes methods to analyze metabolic dynamics and the modeling of red blood cells, E. coli, CHO cells, and human pathogens. He has authored more than 600 articles, 40 U.S. patents, and four textbooks, and serves on the editorial boards for several journals.

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Markus E. Scheller has, over his career, worked for several companies including Ciba-Geigy and, more recently, BASF. At Ciba-Geigy, he co-led a major project that created fully automated chemical synthesis production facilities in Switzerland and the U.S. He was later appointed to lead global process and technology for Ciba’s additives division. In the 2000s, he became a site manager for BASF’s production facility in Monthey, Switzerland. Today, he is self-employed as an operations management advisor for smaller companies. He is active in AIChE’s Management Div. and in conference programming. He earned his PhD in organic chemistry at ETH Zürich.

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A. Ted Watson is Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Colorado State Univ. A chemical engineering alumnus of California Institute of Technology, where he earned his PhD, Watson’s research includes the mathematical modeling of fluids and flow in permeable media, 

magnetic imaging, and system and parameter identification. As Department Head at Colorado State, he established the first ABET-accredited BS degree in chemical and biological engineering. Previously, at Texas A&M Univ., he co-created the Engineering Imaging Laboratory, the first such lab outside the medical establishment to feature both magnetic resonance imaging and X-ray CT scanning.

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