De-Wei Yin (left) introduces young students to the concept of scale-up through hands-on experiments in making lemonade, at the USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, DC, in 2018. Photo credit: Gordon Ellis, AIChE.
ChEnected is introducing readers to the recipients of AIChE’s 2024 Institute and Board of Directors’ Awards. These high honorees are nominated by the chemical engineering community and voted upon by the members of AIChE’s Awards Committee.
AIChE’s Award for Service to Society recognizes outstanding contributions by a chemical engineer to community service and to the solution of socially oriented problems. The honoree’s contributions emphasize a concern for the common good, a willingness to give time and comfort, and the ability to draw together varied resources to solve problems.
This year, AIChE presents its Service to Society Award to De-Wei Yin, a research engineer in the Core R&D Engineering and Process Sciences Division at The Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan. Yin is being recognized “for exemplary service to society through his leadership and championing of diversity groups within AIChE, and for leading student outreach for STEM within his local community.”
Dr. Yin and the other Institute and Board of Directors’ Award honorees will receive their prizes at the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting, October 27–31 in San Diego, California.
De-Wei Yin and his service
As a chemical engineer and in his nearly 20 years an AIChE member, De-Wei Yin has demonstrated his dedication to underserved and future engineers through his advocacy, his AIChE volunteerism (both locally and on the global level), and through his personal involvement in STEM education outreach.
As a member of AIChE’s Mid-Michigan Local Section, he helped establish the Michigan Great Lakes Bay Science and Engineering Festival in 2013. As he became more involved with AIChE on the Institute level — including leadership on the Societal Impact Operating Council (SIOC), which he chaired in 2018 — he was an AIChE delegate to the U.S.A. Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC, in 2014, 2016, and then in 2018, when a team of AIChE member volunteers (coordinate by Yin) engaged with thousands of students of all ages.
Through his service on the SIOC, he and others collaborated on launching two new AIChE member communities: the LGBTQ+ & Allies Community and the Disabilities Outreach and Inclusion (DORIC) Community. Yin was also among the AIChE volunteers who helped to revise AIChE’s diversity statement in 2018, which formed the basis for AIChE’s current statement on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. That statement has further informed the Institute’s IDEAL Path principles, characterized by inclusion, diversity, equity, anti-racism, and learning.
Dr. Yin currently serves on AIChE’s Chemical Engineering Technology Operating Council (CTOC). Among other AIChE activities, he is programming co-chair for the North American Mixing Forum (NAMF) and is serving on the Area 1J Fluid Mechanics programming committee as one of its two industry members. He was also the Program Co-chair for the 2022 AIChE Annual Meeting in Phoenix, AZ, and he continues to foster cross-programming activities among AIChE’s technical divisions and forums.
Yin received his BS in chemical engineering and MS in mechanical engineering at the University of Waterloo, and his PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a licensed professional engineer in Ontario, Canada.
This fall, ChEnected is presenting profiles of all the 2024 Institute and Board of Directors’ Award recipients. Visit ChEnected regularly to meet the honorees.