History of the Department

The appointment of the first Professor of Chemical Engineering in July of 1946 marked the administrative decision that ultimately led to the present chemical engineering program at Berkeley. As the university began to more fully recognize the importance of chemical engineering – especially through its contributions to the war effort in the development of the atomic bomb and in the petroleum and chemical industry—the need for a full-fledged program became apparent. Initially, considerable controversy developed as to whether the program should be in the College of Engineering or the College of Chemistry. For a while, this led to the amusing situation where Berkeley had two chemical engineering departments—one housed in the College of Engineering and the other in the College of Chemistry. The stronger program in the College of Chemistry ultimately prevailed.

Philip Schutz, a professor of chemical engineering at Columbia University, was selected to head the fledgling chemical engineering program. To assist him, Dean Wendell Latimer appointed Charles Wilke (PhD, University of Wisconsin) and LeRoy Bromley (MS, Illinois Institute of Technology). Sadly, shortly after the first class enrolled in 1946, Philip Schutz passed away. Theodore Vermeulen (PhD, UCLA) joined the program in February 1947 and became its head. Don Hanson (PhD, University of Wisconsin) and Charles Tobias (a Hungarian émigré, PhD, Budapest) joined the faculty in the fall of 1947, and they were followed by F. Campbell Williams in 1948.

This initial faculty group remained in place without further additions until 1952 when Ken Jordan from MIT joined the faculty. During this period, a PhD program was formally approved (1948) and the BS program was fully accredited (1949). Charles Wilke succeeded Theodore Vermeulen as Chairman in 1953, and between 1953 and 1955 he recruited three more remarkable intellects: Eugene Petersen from Penn State (1953), Andreas Acrivos from Minnesota (1954), and John Prausnitz from Princeton (1955).

With these pioneers establishing standards of excellence that have consistently marked the department, new areas of research were established in the period between 1953 and 1985. The sub-field of electrochemical engineering (under the leadership of Charles Tobias) is a notable example. During those same years, John Prausnitz developed a systematic approach for obtaining activity coefficients and equations of state for substances central to the petrochemical industry. The major award in this field, now called molecular thermodynamics, is named after Dr. Prausnitz, who continues to be active in teaching, research, and administration.

In the 1970’s Dennis Hess headed up the first program in microelectronics processing within a chemical engineering department. In that same decade, Charles Wilke and Harvey Blanch initiated a pioneering program in biochemical engineering. Under the leadership of Gene Petersen, Michael Boudart, and Alex Bell, an innovative program in catalysis and reaction engineering was established. When Mort Denn joined the faculty in 1981, he set up a world-class program in polymer processing on the Berkeley campus and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Chronology of Events in Chemical Engineering at Berkeley

• 1912- G. N. Lewis institutes a chemical technology major.
• 1942- An interdepartmental graduate group offers the MS degree in chemical engineering.
• 1945- Provost Monroe Deutsch authorizes establishment of a Chemical Engineering program in the College of Chemistry.
• 1946- Initial faculty members are appointed to teach chemical engineering: Philip Schutz (deceased, 1947); LeRoy Bromley (retired, 1972); Charles Wilke (chair 1953-63; retired, 1987).
• 1946 - Undergraduate instruction begins.
• 1947- Theodore Vermeulen (chair 1966-71; deceased 1984), Donald Hanson (chair 1963-66; retired 1989), Charles Tobias (chair 1966-71; retired 1991; deceased 1996) join the faculty.
• 1947 - PhD program is approved.
• 1948- BS degree program in Chemical Engineering is approved.
• 1948- F. Campbell Williams joins the faculty (left for Petrobas and University of Brazil, 1952).
• 1949-The Chemistry Department is renamed the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
• 1949-BS program is accredited by the AIChE.
• 1952- A division of Chemical Engineering is created within the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
• 1952- Kenneth Gordon joins the faculty (left for University of Michigan, 1954)
• 1953- Eugene Petersen (retired, 1991) joins the faculty.
• 1954- Andreas Acrivos joins the faculty (left for Stanford, 1963).
• 1955- John Prausnitz joins the faculty.
• 1956- Donald Olander joins the faculty (left for UCB Nuclear Engineering Department, 1961).
• 1957- Chemical Engineering is established as a separate department.
• 1958- David Lyon (retired 1982) joins the faculty.
• 1961- Alan Foss (retired 1994) and Michael Boudart (left for Stanford 1965; appointed Adjunct Professor, 1994-97) join the faculty. Simon Goren (chair 1994-97; retired 2001) and Richard Wallace (resigned 1965) join the faculty.
• 1963-Edward Grens (retired 1987), C. Judson King (chair 1972-81), John Newman, Richard Ayen (left for Stauffer Chemical Co. 1968), join the faculty.
• 1964- Robert Merrill joins the faculty (left for Cornell, 1977).
• 1965- Michael Williams (retired 1989) joins the faculty.
• 1966- Robert Pigford joins the faculty (returned to University of Delaware, 1975).
• 1966- Room 307 Gilman Hall is designated a registered National Historic Landmark by the US Dept of the Interior as the location of the discovery of plutonium.
• 1967-Scott Lynn (retired 1994) and Alexis Bell (chair 1981-91) join the faculty.
• 1969- Mitchell Shen joins the faculty (deceased, 1979).
• 1970- Lee Donaghey (left for Chevron 1977) and Thomas Sherwood (deceased, 1976) join the faculty.
• 1975- Clayton Radke joins the faculty.
• 1977- Dennis Hess (left for Lehigh University, 1991) joins the faculty.
• 1978- Elton Cairns and Harvey Blanch (chair, 1997-2001) join the faculty.
• 1979- David Soane (left for Soane Technologies 1994; appointed Adjunct Professor, 1994) and Edward Reiff (left for DuPont, 1982) join the faculty.
• 1981- Morton Denn (chair 1991-94; left for CCNY, 1999) joins the faculty.
• 1982- Jeffrey Reimer and James Michaels (left for Mobil, 1989) join the faculty.
• 1986- Douglas Clark, David Graves, and Doros Theodorou (left for University of Patras, 1994) join the faculty.
• 1988- Arup Chakraborty (chair 2001-) joins the faculty.
• 1991- Susan Muller joins the faculty
• 1991- Room 307 Gilman Hall is designated a Nuclear Historic Landmark by the American Nuclear Society as the site of the first chemical identification of plutonium on February 23-24, 1941.
• 1992- Jay Keasling joins the faculty
• 1993- Enrique Iglesia and Roya Maboudian join the faculty.
• 1993- Construction of Tan Hall begins.
• 1997- Gilman Hall designated as an ACS National Historic Chemical Landmark,
• 1997- Dedication of Tan Kah Kee Hall ( April 12, 1997).
• 1999- David Schaffer joins the faculty.
• 2000- Alexander Katz joins the faculty.
• 2004- Rachel Segalman joins the faculty.