President’s Message: One AIChE

Hello and Happy New Year! As we begin the year 2024, I would like to take the opportunity to thank AIChE’s members, volunteers, professional staff, and leadership for their dedication to our profession and the Institute. Through your time and commitment, together we are “doing a world of good.”

As the global leader in chemical engineering, AIChE impacts lives around the world through engineering leadership in the production of sustainable energy and materials, environmental beneficiation, development of advanced bio and health technologies, and many others. While the opportunities are great, the demands for chemical engineering are continually changing — from the residual effects of the pandemic to the challenges of addressing climate change, and more.

AIChE continues to evolve to meet the needs of members, industry, and society. Looking back over the past year, our Institute delivered several transformative initiatives aligned with our strategic plan. Several recent highlights include:

• Expanding the equity, diversity, and inclusivity of the profession through IDEAL (inclusion, diversity, equity, anti-racism, and learning) and developing meeting site selection criteria with IDEAL in focus.
• Being awarded a five-year renewal for our Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) Manufacturing Institute to continue to support the transformation of process industries.
• Updating our membership model and introducing Explorer membership to expand our membership community to non-traditional chemical engineers.
• Signing a letter of intent with the U.K.’s Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) to collaborate on supporting industry’s adoption of hydrogen as an energy carrier in the drive to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
• Launching the Emerging Professionals Program and Community of Process Engineers to enable greater connectivity within our membership.
• Enhancing our societal impact by supporting more than 600 FOSSI (Future of STEM Scholars Initiative) scholarships and introducing the “Bee-a-Chem-E” national awareness campaign targeted at middle school students.

Through the tireless efforts of our volunteers and professional staff, we have an expanding and inclusive global membership base, an ever-expanding portfolio of member services and benefits, and enabling programs to lead our industry through challenging changes. As your president in 2024, my focus will be the continued advancement of our strategic initiatives, and I plan to further advance and broaden the impact of AIChE to our members and society. In particular:

Impact

As the Global Home of Chemical Engineers, we will endeavor to further strengthen and expand the presence of our institutes and centers worldwide, leveraging our engineering expertise to address and solve global energy, food and water, and sustainability challenges. Chemical engineers have the unique skills to solve many of these challenges, and we will continue to build upon the foundations of our RAPID Manufacturing Institute, Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), Institute for Sustainability (IfS), Center for Hydrogen Safety (CHS), and others to provide cross-disciplinary capabilities and knowhow to enable a sustainable future.

Learning

With change comes the opportunity to learn — and today, through our Institute for Learning and Innovation (ILI), we provide our members with discovery and learning opportunities at every stage of their careers. As we navigate new changes, we will continue to build our education and innovation programs to provide additional relevant lifelong learning and training opportunities to prepare all of us to meet future engineering challenges and societal needs.

Partnerships

Strategically enabled partnerships across professional societies, academia, government, and industry allow AIChE to leverage our programs to establish vital connections among students and educators, innovators, practitioners, and policymakers that serve our members and society. These interactions provide AIChE with an opportunity for greater global reach. They also serve our members and society across industries and geographies.

Communications

The pandemic has shown the importance of communicating to our members and other stakeholders. We are listening to the feedback from our membership and will be implementing a comprehensive communications strategy to enhance information exchange. This will include updates to our website. We will also be reviewing our public policy statements on a regular basis, and in 2024 our Climate Change policy will be reviewed and updated to reflect current science and public sentiment.

If you have an interest in any of these areas, I invite you to become more involved in AIChE and to support the development and success of these initiatives. Please feel free to contact me with your thoughts, comments, and suggestions: president@aiche.org.

I am a proud member, volunteer, and Fellow of AIChE, and I am honored to serve the Institute as your 2024 President. Working together we can meet the needs of society through engineering leadership as “One AIChE.” Thank you and I wish you all the best for 2024.

Alan E. Nelson, 2024 AIChE President