COE Distinguished Achievement Award
 Jeffrey H. Curler (BS '73) received the 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award from the UW College of Engineering for his many contributions to the Bemis Company, Inc. Jeff has served as CEO of the company since 2000. Under his leadership, the company has become the No. 1 maker of flexible packaging material in the Americas, operating 31 manufacturing facilities in 13 states in the United States and 24 foreign plants in nine countries. Bemis employs 16,000 people worldwide and posts annual sales of more than $3.5 billion.
The company, among the 10 largest in Wisconsin, employs nearly 3,500 people in the state. Jeff is particularly proud of the Bemis reputation for excellence. In March, the company tied for first place on the Forbes list of the Top-10 Most Trustworthy U.S. Companies, and it has been named to the Forbes Platinum 400 List of America’s Best Big Companies every year since the list started nine years ago.
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José Coca, professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Oviedo and a frequent visiting professor in this department, was recently elected chairman of the separation technologies section (SepTech) of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE). The EFCE was founded in 1953 and has 20 working parties and 5 sections. It has more than 1000 experts from industry and academia. José is the first Spaniard to hold such a position.
L.K. Doraiswamy (MS ’50, PhD ’52), Anson Marston Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemical & Biological Engineering at Iowa State University and a former director of India’s National Chemical Laboratory, was presented with the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers Diamond Award this past December on the occasion of the IIChE 60th anniversary. Dorai also was honored with a special session at the November 2007 AIChE annual meeting: “Invited Frontiers in Chemical Reaction Engineering and Catalysis: In Honor of 50 Years of Contributions of L.K. Doraiswamy.”
Amit Gokhale (PhD ‘05), a senior research engineer working in BP’s global aromatics business, won the 2007 award from BP and Tallow Chandlers Livery Company for outstanding contributions in innovative application of technology through research, engineering, science, understanding business needs, and team involvement. The award recognized Amit’s work in improving BP’s manufacturing
process for paraxylene, the feedstock for producing purified terephthalic acid (PTA), which is used to make textiles, plastic bottles, packaging and film products. The research focused on operation of wash columns for continuous separation of paraxylene crystals from a liquid stream. As an alternative to traditional centrifuge separation techniques, the method delivers significant savings in capital costs for paraxylene manufacture.
Shampa Kandoi (PhD ‘06) joined UTC Power in October 2006. UTC Power, a United Technologies Corporation company, is a full-service provider of environmentally responsible power solutions. For the past year and a half, she has been working on various aspects of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells and has made important contributions in this area. She was given the Senior Management Team Award last year and was promoted to the position of Staff Engineer this year. In her new role, she is leading a small team of engineers and scientists for further development of the fuel cell technology.
Donald Pollock (BS ’54) reports that since retiring in 1996 he has kept active with young people by teaching computer-aided drafting at a high school and serving as a lab director at a local college. He says that his Wisconsin education served him well in his career with Chevron, ARCO, and Dakota Gasification Co. in upper management positions.
Arghajit Roy (BS ’90), General Manager—Projects and Technical Services for India Carbon, Ltd., graduated in April with a post-graduate diploma in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur Vinod Gupta School of Management with a specialization in corporate finance.
F. Joseph Schork (PhD ’81) joined the University of Maryland’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering as chair in the fall of 2006. Before that, Joseph was a professor and associate chair at the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, where he taught for more than 25 years and led the effort to revise the undergraduate curriculum. His research interests and activities include polymer reaction engineering, involving the kinetics, mathematical modeling, reactor design and control of polymerization processes.
Bryan Yeh (BS ’84) has joined SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) as Assistant Vice President, Biofuels. In this capacity, Brian will be responsible for leading a group within SAIC to service the Biofuels industry in the area of process engineering, design/build, technology development and business strategy. Prior to joining SAIC, Brian worked in a similar capacity at General Electric and was with Cargill for over 18 years. He has also been elected Chair of the Northern California Section of AIChE for the 2008-2009 year
