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UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering

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Alvin Nienow made honorary Professor of Biochemical Engineering

11 May 2021

Professor Nienow was an alma mater from 1955 to 1958 and we are very pleased to welcome him back with an honorary professorship 41 years after he left to take up a chair at University of Birmingham. Pictured on leaving In 1980 and receiving Peter Dunnill Award 2018

Pictured on leaving In 1980 and receiving Peter Dunnill Award 2018

After a period in industry, Professor Nienow joined the academic staff on 1 January 1963, being appointed a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering by Professor M B Donald, after whom the Donald Medal is named. He completed a PhD in 1968 on stirred crystallisers and he has since become an expert in stirred reactors in general and bioreactors in particular. He was electd a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1985 and received the Donald Medal in 2000 and the Peter Dunnill Award in 2018.

Professor Nienow was an important figure in the establishment of the discipline of biochemical engineering both at UCL and as a subject in its own right. In 1971 he instigated the setting up of the undergraduate biochemical engineering course to start in 1972 (which it did with 6 students). The small committee that devised the first course included Peter Dunnill, who features prominently as a figure in our history.

We’re also grateful to Professor Nienow for his strong support of the change of name to The Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering in the late 1970s. He left UCL to take up a Chair in Birmingham on 1 April 1980.

In 1998 UCL Biochemical Engineering was established as a department in its own right. Professor Gary Lye, the current Head of Department, said “We are very proud to award this honorary professorship and welcome Professor Nienow back almost 41 years later. It will be great to see his experience benefit today’s students and specifically those on our new MSc programme in Commercialisation and Manufacture of Stem Cell and Gene Therapies.”