Imperial College London professor to give 2025 Danckwerts Lecture

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON professor Claire Adjiman has been selected to give the 2025 Danckwerts Lecture in Lisbon, Portugal in September.

Adjiman’s lecture will be titled Molecular Systems Engineering for Product and Process Design. Adjiman, a professor of chemical engineering and IChemE Fellow is internationally recognised for her research in molecular systems engineering and is editor in chief of Molecular Systems Design and Engineering, a journal jointly published by IChemE and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Adjiman is also the director of Imperial’s Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering.

Adjiman’s work has focused on using novel algorithms to solve integrated design problems in pharmaceutical process and product development, solvent-based CO2 capture and fuel cell design.

Adjiman told TCE: “I am absolutely delighted that the work of my research team and collaborators is being recognised through the award of the Danckwerts Lecture. This is not only a great honour but also a unique opportunity to engage with the chemical engineering community to explore how molecular systems engineering can lead to more sustainable manufacturing practices.”

Adjiman’s research group has also used models and algorithms to predict physical properties from molecular structure, and to solve nonlinear optimisation problems with continuous and discrete decisions. The group’s design approaches have been adopted by the agrochemical and pharmaceutical industries to enhance reaction design, while also improving safety and reducing environmental impact by helping identify solvents that suppress toxic byproducts such as hydrogen cyanide.

The Danckwerts Lecture was established in 1985 in memorial of former Chemical Engineering Science executive editor Peter Danckwerts, a past president of IChemE and Shell professor of chemical engineering at the University of Cambridge. The lecture is co-sponsored by Chemical Engineering Science, IChemE, the American Institution of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), and the European Federation of Chemical Engineering. The annual lecture alternates between taking place at AIChE’s annual meeting and at the European Congress of Chemical Engineering. The 2025 lecture will be given on 9 September at the 15th European Congress in Lisbon, Portugal.