During the 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) conference in San Francisco, the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University hosted a reception to honor the life and legacy of Professor Christodoulos A. Floudas.
During the reception, a video tribute that included many of Floudas’ former students, colleagues and family members who discussed his impact on the field and his life as a whole was shown.
The video included interviews with many prominent members of the chemical engineering field, including Dr. Nicholas A. Peppas of The University of Texas at Austin, Dr. M.M. Faruque Hasan of the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr. M. Nazmul Karim, the head of the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr. Peter DiMaggio of Imperial College, London, and Dr. Marianthi Ierapetritou, the head of the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department at Rutgers University, among many others.
The highlight of the event came as Dr. Ignacio E. Grossmann, the Rudolph R. and Florence Dean University Professor of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, shared memories of his time as Floudas’ Ph.D. adviser.
“I really consider myself extremely fortunate for having had such an extremely bright student,” said Grossmann. “It is very clear that to a large extent, the reputation that I have earned in the field is due to Chris Floudas. We have had a tremendous, tremendous loss in the Process Systems Engineering area. The only consolation that we have is that he will have his legacy through his work, through his papers, and of course through his students that he so passionately informed.”
Below you will find the video tribute that was shown during the event. You can watch a recap of the AIChE reception with the entirety of Grossmann’s remarks on YouTube.