Seminar: Chemical Engineering Education and its role in contributing to a Sustainable Society

When?

Monday 16 July 2012, 10:30 to 11:30

Where?

43 BC 02

Open to:

Students, Staff

Speaker:

Professor David Wood

Abstract:

Over the past thirty years at various times I have been a University Head of Chemical Engineering, Dean of Engineering, Vice President of the IChemE, Chair of the Australian Branch of the IChemE, Honorary Professor of Chemical Engineering at Tianjin University, Chair of the 6th World Congress of Chemical Engineering and President of the World Chemical Engineering Council. The responsibilities associated with these positions have required me to visit chemical engineering departments, engineering schools and professional societies in many different countries. This has given me the opportunity to gain a good understanding of chemical engineering undergraduate programs and the philosophy behind these programs at many universities in these countries. I have gained a good understanding of the research strengths in this mix of universities and also the role of professional accreditation in the undergraduate programs.

In some universities the scientific and engineering quality of the curricular in the undergraduate programs has been less than ideal but the majority of programs are sound. Accreditation assists in maintaining quality and yet there is no independent professional accreditation in China and only a few chemical engineering programs in Japan are accredited.

The talk will focus on how well the graduates from chemical engineering departments around the World, are equipped to play a major role in the development of a sustainable society. The talk will define four sustainability goals and will consider three criteria that should be satisfied if the graduates are equipped to appropriately enter the sustainable society debate.

Comparisons will be made covering a wide range of countries from Europe, China, the Middle East, India, Japan, the UK,  the USA and of course Australia.

Biography:

David is an Emeritus Professor and Professorial Fellow of the University of Melbourne. He is a graduate from the Battersea College of Advanced Technology (now the University of Surrey) and he has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate and Honorary Bachelor’s degree from the University of Surrey. The Honorary Doctorate was in recognition of his services in chemical engineering in the international sphere.

David was Head of Chemical Engineering at the University of Melbourne for 14 years and then he was appointed as Dean of Engineering for two terms each of three years. Under David’s leadership the Melbourne chemical engineering department grew to become the largest teaching and research chemical engineering department in Australia with over 100 graduates each year and equal number of female and male graduates. In terms of research performance, the Department was rated amongst the top three in the University. As Dean of Engineering, David was responsible for approximately 5,000 undergraduates and 300 staff in six departments.

At the professional level David was responsible for the reorganisation of the IChemE in Australia and he was a founder member of the Federation of Chemical Engineering in Australia and New Zealand. He was the Chairman of the Sixth World Congress of chemical engineering held in Melbourne in 2001 and it was this congress that led the change in world congress style and format with Glasgow and Montreal following this successful model in 2005 and 2009 respectively.

David was the President of the World Chemical Engineering Council from 2008 to 2012 and he is currently the President of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI). He was recently elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Since his retirement from the University of Melbourne, David has undertaken active consultancies for Shell, ExxonMobil, Gane Energy P/L and the Commonwealth Government of Australia. He has also been responsible for introducing independent professional accreditation of chemical engineering programs to the top nine chemical engineering departments in China with Tianjin having been successfully awarded IChemE accreditation in 2008