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.
The Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Woman Chemical Engineer is given to a member of AIChE who has made significant contributions to chemical engineering and who has paved the way for women to have a greater impact on the profession.
The award is sponsored by Pfizer and is named for Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau, the first woman member of AIChE and a pioneer who designed the first commercial plant for deep-tank penicillin fermentation during World War II.
In 2024, AIChE will present the Rousseau Pioneer Award to Dr. Umit S. Ozkan, a Distinguished University Professor and a College of Engineering Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University (OSU). She is being honored for bridging heterogeneous catalysis and electrocatalysis; for being an outstanding teacher and mentor; and for blazing trails in every aspect of her professional life.
Dr. Ozkan 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.
Personal growth never stops as long as we don’t stop learning.
Trails blazed
“Chemical engineering teaches us how to be life-long problem solvers,” says Umit Ozkan, who adds, “This skill has served me extremely well throughout my career, whether it was in administration, teaching, or research.”
A trailblazer in these and other endeavors, Dr. Ozkan is known for her work in catalysis.
In the early 2000’s, she began applying the tools of heterogeneous catalysis to studies of electrocatalysts. Her research group was the first to show that nitrogen-doped carbon nanostructures had promising oxygen reduction reaction activity in acidic conditions. This research was published in the Journal of Catalysis, and the article became that journal’s most-cited paper between 2006 and 2011.
Ozkan’s recent work includes high-temperature electrolysis of CO2 and H2O. Using renewable energy to convert CO2 into valuable products — such as syngas — provides a promising carbon recycling strategy. Her team also has recently worked on mid-temperature electrocatalytic ammonia production from nitrogen and water, providing a route for distributed ammonia production as an alternative to the Haber-Bosch process.
Glass ceiling broken
When she joined Ohio State in 1984, Dr. Ozkan was the first woman chemical engineering faculty member at the school, and one of only a handful of women on chemical engineering faculties in the U.S. At OSU, she was Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering from 2000 and 2005. Then, in 2019, she became the first woman to chair the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Ozkan has broken other glass ceilings. She was the first woman to chair the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Petroleum Chemistry Division; the first woman to serve on the Board of Directors of the North American Catalysis Society; and the first woman to be recognized by special volumes of the journals Topics in Catalysis and Catalysis Today. Within AIChE, she was one of the founders of the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering (CRE) Division, and the first woman to serve on CRE’s Board of Directors.
In addition to these numerous accomplishments, Dr. Ozkan considers her mentorship of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to be among her most satisfying experiences.
“It has been my life’s privilege to work with hundreds of young men and women in my classrooms and in my laboratories,” says Ozkan. “To some extent, I touched their lives, but more importantly, they touched mine. They challenged me, they motivated me, and they inspired me. Their curiosity, their joy of discovery, their excitement and their energy—that is what kept me going. And I am forever grateful to them for sharing this journey with me.”
Finally, reflecting on her career to date, Ozkan adds, “I also feel very fortunate to be part of a university that allowed me to do the things that I love so dearly — teaching, learning, discovering, and always growing. Personal growth never stops as long as we don’t stop learning.”
Dr. Ozkan is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of AIChE, ACS, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has also served on editorial Boards of 10 catalysis journals.
This fall, ChEnected is presenting profiles of all the 2024 Institute and Board of Directors’ Award recipients. Visit ChEnected regularly to meet the honorees.