Peter Dunnill

Last updated

Peter Dunnill, OBE, FREng (20 May 1938 – 10 August 2009), [1] was a British pioneer in biochemical engineering and professor at the University College London (UCL), University of London.

United Kingdom Country in Europe

The United Kingdom (UK), officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.

Biochemical engineering

Biochemical engineering, also known as bioprocess engineering, is a field of study with roots stemming from chemical engineering and biological engineering. It mainly deals with the design, construction, and advancement of unit processes that involve biological organisms or organic molecules and has various applications in areas of interest such as biofuels, food, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and water treatment processes. The role of a biochemical engineer is to take findings developed by biologists and chemists in a laboratory and translate that to a large-scale manufacturing process.

Professor academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries

Professor is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences, a teacher of the highest rank.

Contents

Life

Dunnill was born in Harrow, London on 20 May 1938. He studied at the College of North West London. Dunnill self-learned French and German, and obtained his BSc in chemistry from the University College London.

Harrow, London area in the London Borough of Harrow

Harrow is a large suburban town in the London Borough of Harrow, in the north-west of Greater London, England, 10.5 miles (16.9 km) north-west of Charing Cross. Harrow-on-the-Hill is a conservation area with listed buildings of Georgian architecture. The area, which also includes Headstone North, Roxeth, Marlborough, Greenhill, Headstone South and West Harrow electoral wards, had a population of 80,213 at the 2011 census. Harrow was a municipal borough of Middlesex before its inclusion in Greater London in 1965. Harrow is home to a large University of Westminster campus, Harrow School and Harrow High School.

College of North West London

The College of North West London (CNWL) is a further education college in North West London offering a wide range of full-time and part-time courses, from beginner level to degree level.

French language Romance language

French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.

Dunnill continued his study and research at the Royal Institution (RI) where he obtained his PhD in protein crystallography under Nobel laureate Lawrence Bragg. He worked at the Sir John Cass College (now the London Guildhall University).

Royal Institution scientific education and research organisation based in London

The Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organisation devoted to scientific education and research, based in London. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, including Henry Cavendish and its first president, George Finch, the 9th Earl of Winchilsea. Its foundational principles were diffusing the knowledge of, and facilitating the general introduction of, useful mechanical inventions and improvements, as well as enhancing the application of science to the common purposes of life.

Lawrence Bragg Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer

Sir William Lawrence Bragg, was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer (1912) of Bragg's law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure. He was joint winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915: "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-ray", an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography.

London Guildhall University university in the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2002

London Guildhall University was a university in the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2002, established when the City of London Polytechnic was awarded university status. On 1 August 2002, it merged with the University of North London to form London Metropolitan University. The former London Guildhall University premises now form the new University's City campus, situated on various sites in the City of London.

Dunnill spent his entire academic career at UCL, first as a lecturer in physical methods at the Department of Biology of UCL, and the position of Professor of Biochemical Engineering before his death. He was lecturer (1969), reader (1979), and professor (1984) in biochemical engineering at UCL. Dunnill was a founder of the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering at UCL.

Recognitions

Dunnill was elected to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) in 1994. Dunnill was made a Fellow of UCL in 1981. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (elected in 1979), Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (elected in 1981), and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Dunnill was awarded the Donald medal by the Institution of Chemical Engineers in 1995, and was appointed OBE for his services to biochemical engineering in 1999.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a Non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific research institutes and university research departments in the UK.

Royal Society of Chemistry UK learned society

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Faraday Society, and the Society for Analytical Chemistry with a new Royal Charter and the dual role of learned society and professional body. At its inception, the Society had a combined membership of 34,000 in the UK and a further 8,000 abroad. The headquarters of the Society are at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. It also has offices in Thomas Graham House in Cambridge where RSC Publishing is based. The Society has offices in the United States at the University City Science Center, Philadelphia, in both Beijing and Shanghai, China and Bangalore, India. The organisation carries out research, publishes journals, books and databases, as well as hosting conferences, seminars and workshops. It is the professional body for chemistry in the UK, with the ability to award the status of Chartered Chemist (CChem) and, through the Science Council the awards of Chartered Scientist (CSci), Registered Scientist (RSci) and Registered Science Technician (RScTech) to suitably qualified candidates. The designation FRSC is given to a group of elected Fellows of the society who have made major contributions to chemistry and other interface disciplines such as biological chemistry. The names of Fellows are published each year in The Times (London). Honorary Fellowship of the Society ("HonFRSC") is awarded for distinguished service in the field of chemistry.

Institution of Chemical Engineers organization

The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) is a global professional engineering institution with over 40,000 members in over 120 countries worldwide. It was founded in 1922 and awarded a Royal Charter in 1957.

Extra information

Obituaries from major media:

<i>The Times</i> British daily compact newspaper owned by News UK

The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, itself wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently, and have only had common ownership since 1967.

<i>The Guardian</i> British national daily newspaper

The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, the Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of the Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders.

<i>Times Higher Education</i> newspaper

Times Higher Education (THE), formerly The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), is a weekly magazine based in London, reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. It is the United Kingdom's leading publication in its field.

Related Research Articles

Man Mohan Sharma Indian chemical engineer

Man Mohan Sharma FREng is an Indian chemical engineer. He was educated at Jodhpur, Mumbai and Cambridge. At the age of 27 years, he was appointed Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Institute of Chemical Technology (UDCT), Mumbai. He later went on to become the Director of Institute of Chemical Technology, the first chemical engineering professor to do so from ICT.

George Barger British chemist and biochemist

George Barger FRS FRSE FCS LLD was a British chemist.

John Francis "Jack" Richardson OBE was a UK chemical engineering academic, notable for his research into multiphase flow and rheology, but best known for a series of textbooks.

John Stuart Anderson FRS, FAA, was a British and Australian scientist who was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford.

Peter Victor Danckwerts, was a chemical engineer who pioneered the concept of the residence time distribution. In 1940, during the Second World War, he was awarded the George Cross for his work in defusing Parachute mines. He later became Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge from 1959 to 1977 and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Lynn Faith Gladden, is the Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. She served as Pro-vice-chancellor for research from 2010 to 2016. Since October 2018 she has been executive chair at the EPSRC.

John Frank Davidson FRS FREng FIChemE is a British chemical engineer and former Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He is regarded as the founding father of the Fluidization in Chemical Engineering.

Alexander Lamb Cullen, was a British electrical engineer.

John Frederick Knott OBE FRS FREng was an English metallurgist and materials scientist.

John Stuart Archer, CBE, FRSE, FREng was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Heriot-Watt University from 1997 to 2006.

The UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences is one of the 11 constituent faculties of University College London (UCL). The Faculty, the UCL Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and the UCL Faculty of the Built Envirornment together form the UCL School of the Built Environment, Engineering and Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

Sir Eric Keightley Rideal, was an English physical chemist. He worked on a wide range of subjects, including electrochemistry, chemical kinetics, catalysis, electrophoresis, colloids and surface chemistry. He is best known for the Eley–Rideal mechanism, which he proposed in 1938 with Daniel D. Eley. He is also known for the textbook that he authored, An Introduction to Surface Chemistry (1926), and was awarded honours for the research he carried out during both World Wars and for his services to chemistry.

Alexander Oliver Rankine was a British physicist who worked on the viscosity of gases, molecular dynamics, optics, acoustics and geophysics.

Norman Greenwood Australian chemist

Norman Neill Greenwood FRS CChem FRSC was an Australian-British chemist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Leeds. He is probably best known for the innovative textbook Chemistry of the Elements, co-authored with Alan Earnshaw, first published in 1984.

Howard Allaker Chase ScD, FREng is a British academic and chemical engineer. He is Head of the School of Technology and Professor of Biochemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. From 1998 to 2006 he was Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Chase has been a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering since 2005. He is also a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Chartered Engineer, a Chartered Chemist, and a Chartered Scientist. In 2010 he was awarded the Donald Medal, an award of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, in recognition of his industrially related research in the field of bioseparations technology. Chase was an undergraduate, and a research student (Biochemistry) at Magdalene College, Cambridge between 1972 and 1978. He held a Research Fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge from 1978 to 1982. In 1984 he was elected to a Fellowship at Magdalene College, Cambridge where he became Director of Studies in Chemical Engineering. He was Tutor for Graduate Students 1987-1994, Tutor 1994-1996 and Senior Tutor 1993-1996.

Peter Gray FRS was Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leeds and subsequently Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Professor John Garside, CBE FREng is a British chemical engineer who was the last Vice-Chancellor of UMIST.

Peter Bernard David de la Mare was a New Zealand physical organic chemist.

Prof Kenneth George Denbigh FRS was an English chemical engineer and scientific philosopher. He wrote much on the issue of time in relation to thermodynamics. He was an associate of the Russian chemist Georgi Gladyshev.

Raffaella Ocone is Professor of Chemical Engineering at Heriot-Watt University and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2006 she was awarded the title Cavaliere of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and in the 2019 New Year Honours she was appointed OBE.

References

  1. "Peter Dunnill, 1938-2009". 27 August 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2010.