2025 Presidential Address
Raffaella Ocone was officially declared IChemE’s 84th President at the Annual General Meeting on 10 June, and marked the occasion by delivering her Presidential Address on 11 June 2025.
In her address, Tackling Global Challenges, Delivering Global Impact: A Multiscale Approach, Raffaella discussed how chemical engineering is about turning ideas into impactful, scalable solutions, and that solving global issues requires working across multiple scales, from local insights to global systems. Raffaella shared how a multiscale engineering approach can drive real change, and how her journey from a small town to a career in chemical engineering reflects that very principle.
Raffaella's biography
Raffaella is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, where she has been since 1999, and was the first female professor of chemical engineering in Scotland.
She graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Università di Napoli, Italy and obtained her MA and PhD from Princeton University, US.
Raffaella was appointed the first Caroline Herschel Visiting Professor in Engineering at RUHR Universität, Germany in recognition of her work in ethics and was the recipient of a Visiting Research Fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna, Italy.
In 2007, Raffaella was appointed Cavaliere of the Italian Republic and in The Queen’s 2019 New Year Honours she was appointed Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to engineering.
Raffaella’s expertise lies in the field of complex reactive systems and their application in the energy industry. She has taken the lead in the teaching of engineering ethics and the role of responsible technologies for the energy transition