Seville awarded Davidson medal for ‘lifelong commitment’ to ChemEng mentoring

FORMER IChemE president Jonathan Seville has been awarded the 2026 Davidson medal for his “lifelong commitment to excellence in mentoring”. 

The Davidson medal is awarded annually by IChemE to recognise individuals who have been active mentors in industry or academia. Seville, currently a professor of formulation engineering at the University of Birmingham and previously its head of chemical engineering, told TCE he was touched to “have some recognition for work in developing the next generation…partly because I feel as though I was really well mentored myself”. 

Jonathan Seville

Seville paid tribute to Roland Clift, also an IChemE Fellow, who headed the University of Surrey’s chemical engineering department when Seville completed his PhD there in 1987.

Seville added that it was “very satisfying” to receive the award as John Davidson, after whom the medal is named, was the head of department at the University of Cambridge when he was an undergraduate in the late 1970s. 

IChemE’s medals and prizes committee commended Seville’s “long-term dedication to mentoring younger generations of chemical engineers, with many of his mentees going on to become leaders and mentors in their own right.” Seville said it is “very rewarding to be a mentor”, adding that the most important outcome of research is “very often the people that you develop”.

The Institution announced winners for 17 individual medals and six team medals. Vassilis Charitopoulos, an associate professor at University College London, was awarded the Junior Sargent medal, which is awarded each year to early career chemical engineers who have made significant contributions to computer-aided product and process engineering research. The committee praised Charitopoulos’s “pioneering work in the theory and application of optimisation under uncertainty” having “significantly advanced the state of the art in process systems engineering”. Charitopoulos said it was a “great honour” for his research to be recognised, and that “it gives me great confidence to pursue blue sky and risky research”. 

Charitopoulos said the award also had “sentimental weight” having completed his PhD at Imperial College London’s Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering, which, like the medal, honours the late Roger Sargent.

Committee chair Mark Simmons said: “In an ever-changing world, chemical engineers are constantly breaking through barriers in the pursuit of innovation and positive impact and this was evident in the impressive breadth and scope of the nominations, particularly as we seek to engineer a more sustainable world. We should be rightly proud of the world-leading examples of research, teaching and thought leadership, as well as outstanding volunteer service, evident in the nominations received.”

IChemE president Rafaella Ocone offered her “most sincere congratulations” to the winners. “You are raising the bar for our profession and inspiring others to aim higher.”

Medals will be presented to winners at this year’s conferring ceremony in Glasgow on 26-27 May. 

The full list of winners can be found at https://www.icheme.org/about-us/news-releases/icheme-announces-winners-of-2026-medals-and-prizes/