Prof. Jesse Zhu is a Distinguished University Professor and Canada Research Chair at Western University (formerly known as the University of Western Ontario), in London, Canada. Since 1982, he has worked on many areas of fluidization and particle technology including several years at Shell in the Netherlands, and working with fluidization pioneers like John Grace and Mooson Kwauk. With nearly 500 journal publications, 50+ patents, and over 250 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows supervised, he has worked on a very wide range of R&D projects, many from the industry. In addition to fundamental research, he is particularly active in technology developments and transfers, with several inventions commercialized or being commercialized. Companies established by his graduate students and post-doctoral fellows have spanned from materials, to environmental and then to pharmaceutical industries.
At Western University, he established the Particle Technology Research Centre in 1999 and has served as its Director since then. He is a Fellow of Chemical Institute of Canada and Engineering Institute of Canada, and also a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada and Canadian Academy of Engineering for which he is also a current Board Director. He has chaired many conferences including two annual conferences of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering and the 7th International Conference on Circulating Fluidized Bed. He has received many awards including three major awards from the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (Syncrude Innovation Award for Outstanding Young Chemical Engineer, Bantrel Award in Design and Industrial Practice, and R.S. Jane Award as the highest career award of the society), the PSRI Fluidization Lectureship Award, the Premier's Research Excellence Award, the Ontario Professional Engineers Engineering Medal, and the Distinguished University Professorship and the Hellmuth Prize for Achievement in Research (the highest research award) at Western University.