Winners of the 2024 IChemE medals announced

IChemE is pleased to announce the winners of its 2024 medals and prizes. Eight individuals and five groups have been recognised today (5 March) by the IChemE Medals and Prizes Committee for their exceptional contribution to the field of chemical and process engineering.

IChemE medals and prizes are awarded annually, and celebrate the remarkable achievements of individuals, universities and companies, encompassing an array of talent from both industry and academia.

Professor Mark Simmons FIChemE, Chair of the IChemE Medals and Prizes Committee, said: “We are delighted to award these individuals and teams our profession’s highest accolades. Chemical engineers are constantly creating important new frontiers through their collective pursuit of knowledge, innovation, and positive impact, and this was evident in the impressive breadth and scope of the nominations. The submissions demonstrated world-leading examples of research, teaching and thought leadership, as well as outstanding volunteer service.”

Nigel Hirst, IChemE President, added: “I am proud to commend these extraordinary contributions made by the chemical engineering community. The IChemE medals and prizes honour and celebrate those who are helping to shape the world with groundbreaking work, exceptional expertise, and dedicated progress towards addressing our global challenges. Congratulations to all of our very worthy winners, who have set an inspiring standard of excellence for us all!”

Individual awards

• Ambassador Prize - Jennifer Aitken (posthumous award)
• Davidson Medal - Vince Pizzoni
• Franklin Medal - Gus Carroll         
• Greene Medal - Geoff Maitland
• Junior Sargent Medal - Qi Zhang
• Morton Medal - Thomas Rodgers
• Nicklin Medal - Binjian Nie
• Trustees Medal - Margaret Donnan

Team awards

• Hanson Medal - Team from University of Melbourne, Australia
• Hutchison Medal (joint award)
  • Team from University of Minnesota, USA
  • Team from Shanghai Maritime University, China, and Tongji University, China
• Macnab-Lacey Prize - Team from University College London, UK
• Senior Moulton Medal - Team from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

The medal winner’s achievements will be recognised and celebrated during webinars taking place throughout the year.

Nominations and entries for the 2025 IChemE Medals and Prizes will open on 2 April 2024.

Citation summaries

The Ambassador Prize has been awarded posthumously to Jennifer Aitken in recognition of her leadership and mentoring commitment, technical acumen, and outstanding work in pharmaceutical process design and safety.

Vince Pizzoni’s generous dedication of his time to initiatives that support early career chemical engineers and share his knowledge as widely as possible has been celebrated with the award of the Davidson Medal, which recognises the work of active mentors.

The Franklin Medal has been awarded to Gus Carroll following his outstanding and continuing positive influence across a long and diverse career in safety performance across a range of chemical industry organisations and regulators.

IChemE Past President Geoff Maitland has been awarded the Greene Medal in recognition of his dedicated, wide-ranging and outstanding contribution to the work, progress and public profile of IChemE over the course of 40 years.

Qi Zhang’s novel technique and fundamental advances in process systems engineering and their application to industrial decarbonisation, and to mapping the role of green ammonia in the energy transition, have been recognised with the award of the Junior Sargent Medal.

The Morton Medal has been given to Thomas Rodgers in recognition of his inspiring excellence in chemical engineering education, where he has delivered significant impact through developing training courses and delivering workshops, as well as his published work.

The Nicklin Medal has been awarded to early career researcher Binjian Nie, for excellence in research and pioneering impact in the field of thermal batteries for green chemical process engineering and sustainable chemical and fuel production.

The award of the Trustees Medal to Margaret Donnan recognises her transformative leadership and advocacy as Chair of the IChemE Safety Centre, and is a testament to her effective governance and ability to significantly increase and retain ISC members and partners.

For their thought-provoking and forward-looking appraisal article, ‘A Tool for Learning: Classroom Use-cases for Generative AI’, Christopher Honig, Shannon Rios and Eduardo Oliveira from the University of Melbourne, Australia, have been awarded the Hanson Medal.

The Hutchison Medal is awarded for both practical and wide-ranging, philosophical, or thought- provoking published papers, and in 2024 the judges have made a joint award:

• Hanchu Wang, Prodromos Daoutidis, and Qi Zhang from the University of Minnesota, USA, for ‘Ammonia-based green corridors for sustainable maritime transportation’, giving a stimulating vision of future optimal green shipping trade routes, energy supply and infrastructure.
• Yan Cui, Jianghong Liu and Sumiao Yin from Shanghai Maritime University, China, and Beihua Cong and Xin Han, from Tongji University, China, for ‘Characterization and assessment of fire evolution process of electric vehicles placed in parallel’, a striking and unique study of electric vehicle fires.

Greg D'Silva, Dhilan Patel, Saranya Saravanan, Joan Tang and Shaun Tan from University College London, UK were awarded the Macnab-Lacey Prize for their design project ‘Sustainable Production of Bisphenol-A from Cumene’, a well-written, logical submission with good consideration of sustainability principles.  

The Senior Moulton Medal was awarded to Maximilian F. Theisen, Kenji Nishizaki Flores, Lukas Schulze Balhorn, and Artur M. Schweidtmann from the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, for their novel and meritorious paper, ‘Digitization of chemical process flow diagrams using deep convolutional neural networks’.

Links

Citations for IChemE’s 2024 Medals and Prizes winners

IChemE Medals and Prizes

Contact

For more information please contact:

Ann Baylis, Communications Executive and PR Lead, IChemE
t: +44 (0) 1788 534477
e: abaylis@icheme.org

Dan Owens, Communications Executive, IChemE  
t: +44 (0) 1788 534458  
e: dowens@icheme.org

What is chemical engineering?

Chemical, biochemical and process engineering is the application of science, mathematics and economics in the process of turning raw materials into everyday, and more specialist, products. Professional chemical engineers design, construct and manage process operations all over the world. Energy, pharmaceuticals, food and drink, synthetic fibres and clean drinking water are just some of the industry sectors and products where chemical engineering plays a central role.

IChemE

The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) advances chemical engineering's contribution for the benefit of society. We facilitate the development of chemical engineering professionals and provide connections to a powerful network of around 30,000 members in more than 100 countries.

We support our members in applying their expertise and experience to make an influential contribution to solving major global challenges, and are the only organisation permitted to award Chartered Chemical Engineer status and Professional Process Safety Engineer registration.