LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 25, 2023) — Dibakar Bhattacharyya, Ph.D., professor of chemical and materials engineering within the University of Kentucky College of Engineering, is the 2023 recipient of the Alan S. Michael Award for Innovation in Membrane Science and Era.
The award, given by means of the North American Membrane Society (NAMS), acknowledges people who have made remarkable contributions to membrane science and era thru technical inventions and outstanding lifetime achievements.
“It’s an ideal honor that amongst many remarkable membrane researchers on the earth, I’ve been decided on by means of NAMS. I’m additionally very lucky to be a college member at UK. My non-public luck pertains to having remarkable undergraduate and graduate collaborators,” Bhattacharyya stated. “UK has supplied me the best atmosphere to amplify on membrane and environmental remediation applied sciences. However my major interest is to make scholars extremely a hit thru transdisciplinary coaching, which contains running towards inventions in instructing and analysis.”
The Alan S. Michael Award used to be established to honor the overdue researcher — who used to be a pioneer in membrane science and era. His paintings on ultrafiltration, membrane-based drug supply methods and new membrane processes for the biopharmaceutical trade represented important advances within the box. Michaels used to be the founding father of Amicon, which used to be later obtained by means of Millipore (now EMD Millipore).
Bhattacharyya has been a fixture in UK Engineering for greater than 50 years and is famend for his analysis, which specializes in incorporating existence sciences fabrics with responsive and catalytic membranes for filtering, detoxifying and generating blank water.
These days, the director of UK’s Center of Membrane Sciences, recognized to pals and associates as “DB,” additionally contributed his a long time of membrane experience to assist deal with the unfold of COVID-19. He, and his crew of college and scholar collaborators, developed a medical face mask that captured and deactivated the virus on touch.
Initially of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Bhattacharyya, along side collaborators throughout disciplines at UK, gained a grant from the Nationwide Science Basis (NSF) to create the fabric. Their paintings used to be published in the Nature journal Communications Materials ultimate 12 months.
A fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the North American Membrane Society, Bhattacharyya has 9 U.S. patents together with his scholars and gained Kentucky’s best possible training award in 3 other a long time. Moreover, he has 34 ebook chapters and two books to his credit score, along side loads of refereed publications.
In 2021, Bhattacharyya additionally gained the SEC College Fulfillment Award.
“This most up-to-date award additional solidifies Dr. Bhattacharyya’s immeasurable affect at the fields of each environmental engineering and membrane science in his greater than 50 years on the College of Kentucky,” stated Rudolph G. Buchheit, the Rebecca Burchett Liebert Dean of UK Engineering. “The varsity, in addition to all of the college, is lucky to have anyone together with his degree of experience, innovation and talent — serving as a catalyst for answers to a couple of society’s most complicated demanding situations.”
Because the recipient of the Alan S. Michael Award, Bhattacharyya will obtain a $10,000 prize and lifelong club to NAMS. The award might be offered on the upcoming NAMS Annual Assembly dinner party.
Analysis reported on this newsletter used to be supported by means of the Nationwide Science Basis underneath Award Quantity 2030217. The critiques, findings, and conclusions or suggestions expressed are the ones of the writer(s) and don’t essentially replicate the perspectives of the Nationwide Science Basis.
