Honorary Session for Prof. Ranil Wickramasinghe II

Throughout his career Prof Ranil Wickramasinghe has worked in the field of membrane science and technology. Though he has contributed to several areas of membrane-based separation processes his greatest contributions have been to membrane-based bioseparations. Prof Wickramasinghe is a distinguished professor and holder of the Ross E Martin Chair in Emerging Technologies at the University of Arkansas where he is the Director of the Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology (MAST) Center. He was selected as the first Arkansas Research Alliance Scholar. Prof Wickramasinghe obtained both his BS and MS degrees from the University of Melbourne and his PhD from the University of Minnesota. He has worked in industry and academy: he worked for 5 years at Sepracor and Hemasure two start-up membrane companies and later at Biogen. His academic career began at Colorado State University prior to joining the University of Arkansas. Prof Wickramasinghe published over 200 peer-reviewed journal publications and books chapters, he edited several books and holds a number of patents. He is the co-founder of two start-up companies. Prof Wickramasinghe has actively contributed to AIChE serving on numerous committees and councils. He was the chair of the 2013 Annual Meeting Program and of the 2020 Separations Division.