NEW YORK CITY, NY, July 30, 2025 – Satish Kumar, McKnight University Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, has been chosen to present the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE’s) William R. Schowalter Lecture at the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting, November 2–6 in Boston, MA.
Endowed by the AIChE Foundation, the annual lectureship honors William Schowalter, professor emeritus of chemical engineering at Princeton University. Reflecting his legacy, the lecture alternates between fluid mechanics topics presented by academic speakers and chemical engineering subjects delivered by industry professionals. This year’s lecture will focus on fluid mechanics.
In his lecture on November 5, Kumar will discuss the partnership between research institutions and industry, and how those collaborations can serve for academic research, experimentation, and problem solving through fluid mechanics.
Satish Kumar received his undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Stanford University, all in chemical engineering. Following postdoctoral work at École Normale Supérieure and the University of Michigan, he joined the University of Minnesota faculty in 2001. His research integrates transport phenomena, colloid and interface science, rheology, and applied and computational mathematics with experiments related to materials processing. He has published more than 170 research papers, many of which were inspired by industrial applications such as coating and printing processes, polymer processing, nanofluidics, and energy systems.
Kumar is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Engineering Mathematics and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics. He has served as an executive committee member of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics, is a former president of the International Society of Coating Science and Technology and is a member of the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He also served as faculty director of the University of Minnesota’s Industrial Partnership for Research in Interfacial and Materials Engineering (IPRIME), and is currently co-director of its Coating Process Fundamentals program.
Source: AIChE
About AIChE
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers, founded in 1908, is a nonprofit organization headquartered in New York. It serves more than 60,000 members in over 110 countries. The organization provides technical conferences, publications, educational programs, and industry collaborations. It supports fields such as energy, pharmaceuticals, food, and environmental engineering. Key initiatives include the Center for Chemical Process Safety, the Institute for Sustainability, and the Society for Biological Engineering. As of Dec. 31, 2023, it reported approximately $63.2M in total assets and employs about 1,600 people across six continents. The institute is focused on advancing chemical engineering through innovation, safety, and sustainability.