Dec 7 2016
Glenn Fredrickson, a UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) engineer, has been presented with the 2016 William H. Walker Award for Excellence in Contributions to Chemical Engineering Literature awarded by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The award, which has been presented annually from the year 1936, is named after William H. Walker, one of the American pioneers of chemical engineering principles and practice.
Glenn Fredrickson. Credit: COURTESY PHOTO.
The computational field theory techniques developed by Fredrickson have dramatically transformed the analysis of complex fluids and soft materials, especially in block copolymers and self-assembling polymers. Termed as field-theoretic simulations (FTS), the techniques are important not only due to their significance to molecular thermodynamics but also due to their engineering effect on directed self-assembly, which is an emerging lithographic technology for semiconductor devices. The FTS software tools developed by UCSB’s Fredrickson Research Group are being employed by organizations such as Samsung and Intel to develop their next-generation lithographic processes.
This major award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers recognizes Glenn Fredrickson’s immense and impactful contributions to the chemical engineering literature, particularly with respect to polymer theory and simulations. We are incredibly proud of Glenn’s achievements and thrilled that they go so much further than the literature contributions recognized by this award to contributions to UCSB, where he is an incredible colleague and a cornerstone of many exciting collaborations.
Rachel Segalman, the Edward Noble Kramer Professor and chair of Department of Chemical Engineering at the UCSB
After publishing an influential article in the year 2002 in Macromolecules journal, which described the complete framework of FTS, Frederickson, the Mitsubishi Chemical Chair in Functional Materials at UCSB, published the Oxford University Press monograph titled “The Equilibrium Theory of Inhomogeneous Polymers” 4 years later. This book unified the field of nonhomogeneous polymer theory and simulation, and has since been the standard reference for not only the self-consistent field theory but also the more powerful FTS developed by Fredrickson.
Fredrickson obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1980 from the University of Florida, and earned his master’s degree and doctorate respectively in 1981 and 1984 from Stanford University. Before joining the faculty at UCSB in 1990, he worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories. He was appointed as the chief technology officer and member of the board of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation in Tokyo in the year 2014.
He is not only a member of the National Academy of Engineering but also a fellow of the AIChE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science and Engineering from the American Chemical Society, the Collaboration Success Award from the Council for Chemical Research, and the Polymer Physics Prize from the American Physical Society are some of the most notable awards he has received.