Letter from the Chair

Dear Friends and Alumni:

This newsletter comes to you after a one-year delay and I would like to summarize the various activities since the last newsletter of Spring 2004.

After seven years of distinguished service as chairman, Professor Carl Knopf stepped down in 2005 and returned to full-time teaching and research. I would like to express our appreciation to his dedicated service and leadership during the seven years. We have achieved much during these years that has laid the foundation for future growth. Under his leadership we successfully went through the ABET accreditation visit and the internal Academic Program Review.

I was asked by Dean Bassiouni to serve as Interim Department Chair while a national search for a permanent chair is underway.

Since the last newsletter we had three retirements from the faculty: Professor Danny Reible in Fall 2004, Professors Armando Corripio and Ben McCoy in Spring 2005. Professor Reible was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering just before his retirement after 22 years of service to LSU. Professor Corripio retired after 37 years of dedicated service to the department; although, retired Professor Corripio will continue to provide service to the department in teaching our design course. We are also fortunate that we will have two new faculty as of Fall 2005: Professor Jose Romagnoli from the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia will be joining us as the Cain Chair Professor, and James Henry will be joining us in Fall 2005 as an Assistant Professor. Henry received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. Professor Romagnoli is a well-known authority in the area of process control and Professor Henry works in the area of biochemical engineering. We are also on-line to recruit two other assistant professors in the next academic year.

The department is continuing to modernize our undergraduate laboratory under the able leadership of Professor Kerry Dooley and Harry Toups, Ph.D. Most of the experiments have been modernized and several new ones added. Any of our alumni or friends willing to help with this effort is welcome to get in touch with Professor Dooley.

The Departmental Industrial Advisory committee will be reconstituted in Fall 2005 and I hope to have them meet shortly thereafter.

Most important of all is the move towards a new building for the department. Our new building is high priority for the University, and it is on the Capital Outlay plan. However, uncertainties in the state budget will delay the start of the construction to the next fiscal year. We have been meeting with the architects who are designing the building and anyone interested in seeing the new plans can drop by the department or view them on our Web site. A sketch of the building is also on the cover of this newsletter. The fund-raising efforts are well underway under the direction of Dean Emeritus Edward McLaughlin. You should have received materials regarding the fund-raising efforts and we hope that we will witness an enthusiastic response from our friends and alumni. Any contributions made out to this effort should specify “LSU Foundation: Chemical Engineering Building Fund” so that it will be appropriately credited with the LSU Foundation.

The alumni reunion of 2005 is scheduled for October and you should have received this mailing recently. I hope to visit with all of you at that time. You may enter the relevant updated information on our recently redesigned web site at www.che.lsu.edu.

In closing I wish you the very best for the rest of 2005 and beyond. If you happen to visit Baton Rouge, please stop by the department.

Kalliat T. Valsaraj
Interim Department Chair
Charles and Hilda Roddey Distinguished Professor

If you would like to know mere about contributing, please contact Kalliat Valsaraj at 225/578-1426 or send an email to valasaraj@lsu.edu.