RWTH: RWTH honorary doctorate for Ignacio Grossmann
RWTH Rector Ulrich Rüdiger has now awarded Professor Ignacio Grossmann the academic degree and the dignity of “Honorary Doctor of Engineering”. The award was made “in recognition of his outstanding engineering achievements in the field of process engineering and his broad social commitment to education and research”.
Grossmann is an expert in the development and application of optimization methods for process design. Born in Mexico City in 1949, he first studied chemical engineering at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and later moved to the Imperial College in London. There he received his doctorate in 1977. Since 1979 he has been Professor of Process Systems Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, USA, which has been a leader in process systems engineering for decades under his direction. The textbook “Systematic Methods of Chemical Process Design”, which Grossmann published together with two colleagues, is used worldwide.
The process engineer has already received numerous prizes and honors: the American Institute of Chemical Engineering honored him with the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award, the Willian H. Walker Award and the Warren Lewis Award, and ETH Zurich presented him with the Chemical Engineering Medal. He is also already an honorary doctor of the Abo Akademi University in Turku, Finland, the University of Maribor in Slovenia, the Technical University of Dortmund, the University of Cantabria in Spain and the Kazan National Research Technological University in Russia.
Exchange between RWTH and CMU
As a guest lecturer, Grossmann has taught at many universities. In addition, he promotes international cooperation and partnerships, for example he was one of the initiators of an exchange program between RWTH and CMU. This is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as part of International Study and Training Partnerships (ISAP). Since 1995, three RWTH students have spent two semesters at the CMU every year, and three CMU students can study in Aachen at the same time. Grossman is still the point of contact for the exchange program and has made a significant contribution to it. With great commitment he always looks after RWTH students in America and has also published scientific articles with some RWTH students.