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Rensselaer Professor Georges Belfort Named to Scientific Advisory Board of Max Planck Institute, Elected Member of Institute of Bologna Academy of Sciences
Bioseparations Expert at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute Recognized by Elite Scientific
Societies
Belfort delivers his honorary lecture at
his induction into the Institute of Bologna Academy of
Sciences on March 12 in Bologna, Italy.
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World-leading bioseparations expert Georges Belfort visited
Germany and Italy last month as part of two prestigious honors
from elite European scientific societies.
Belfort, Institute Professor and a member of the Howard P. Isermann Department of
Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, was recently elected a foreign corresponding
member of the Institute of Bologna Academy of Sciences. He
visited the academy in March to present his honorary lecture,
“Combining Science and Engineering for Molecular Separations:
Thoughts from a Career.” The academy was created in 1690 by
16-year-old astronomer Eustachio Manfredi, and has grown over
the centuries into one of Europe’s most renowned scientific
societies.
Additionally, Belfort was recently named a member of the
International Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute
for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems. As part of the
six-year appointment, Belfort visited the Institute in
Magdeburg, Germany, with nine other international experts for a
two-day session. The primary task of the board is to counsel
the institute and to critically assess its scientific
performance according to high international standards. The
institute is one of 80 that make up the distinguished Max Planck Society for the
Advancement of Science, an independent nonprofit research
organization funded by the German government and named for the
physicist who discovered quantum physics.
“Dr. Belfort’s career has been punctuated by world-changing
discoveries and intrepid leadership in chemical and biological
engineering. This recognition from the Institute of Bologna
Academy of Sciences and Max Planck Institute only reinforces
his status as a pillar of excellence in his field and on the
Rensselaer campus. His successes shine brightly on all of us,
and we offer him our warmest congratulations,” said Prabhat Hajela, acting
provost at Rensselaer.
Belfort has earned a place among the world’s most respected
academic and industrial chemical engineers. Throughout his
career, he has made seminal contributions in liquid-phase
pressure-driven membrane-based processes, bioseparations
engineering, interfacial science, protein misfolding at
surfaces, and affinity separations.
The editor or co-editor of three books, Belfort has
published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and 22 book
chapters. His h factor, a key metric for academic
researchers that measures both productivity and the impact of
published research, is greater than 40. He serves on the
editorial boards of several international journals and is the
international editor of the Journal of Chemical
Engineering of Japan. Belfort also lectures widely in both
academic and industrial settings and is an active consultant in
the United States, Europe, and Japan.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) Biotechnology Division
recently honored Belfort with the 2011 Alan S. Michaels Award
in the Recovery of Biological Products. In 2008, the American
Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) named Belfort one of
the “100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era.” Also in 2008,
he received the ACS E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and
Engineering Chemistry. Other major awards given to Belfort
include the AIChE Clarence Gerhold Award in Separation Science
and Technology in 2000, and the ACS Award in Separation Science
and Technology in 1995.
Belfort is a member of the National Academy of Engineering
(NAE) and a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and
Biological Engineering (AIMBE). He is co-founder and former
president of the North American Membrane Society, and has twice
been named a fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion
of Science.
Belfort received his bachelor’s degree in chemical
engineering from the University of Cape Town in South Africa,
and his master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering
from the University of California at Irvine.
For more information on Belfort’s research at Rensselaer,
visit:
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Published
April 25,
2012 |
Contact: Michael Mullaney
Phone: (518) 276-6161
E-mail: mullam@rpi.edu |
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