ChE in the News

In the August 2003 edition of InTech magazine, the Cain Department of Chemical Engineering was mentioned twice in a piece titled, "Leaders of the Pack: From the Plant to Academia, InTech's 50 most influential industry innovators."

In the article, the editors outline 50 individuals from technologists to entrepreneurs to teachers who have had a lasting impact in the areas of automation, instrumentation, and control technologies.

InTech began 50 years ago as ISA Journal (Instrument Society of America). Since its inception, the publication has focused on providing in-depth information about every significant technical development that has influenced the world of measurement and control. For InTech's 50th anniversary issue, the editors asked scores of instrumentation and control experts in numerous fields to name specific individuals who have influenced them the most. Among those named were two former faculty members of our department, Cecil Smith and Paul Murrill.

Cecil Smith is credited with "providing control engineers with a better understanding of how process dynamics impact control mode selection," as well as with "creating the preeminent program in process control" in our department.

Paul Murrill worked with Smith on early research in digital system tuning methods. The article states that Murrill "could make difficult concepts easy to understand." In 1967, he wrote one of the first textbooks on Automatic Process Control. He later cowrote nine other books on various subjects, including process mathematical modeling and computer programming. He is not only a former professor but was also head of the department from 1967 to 1969, and served as Chancellor of LSU from 1974 to 1980.