Driven by curiosity. Driving changeHeads of Department
Department of Chemical Engineering
Professor Terence Fox
Head of Department 1946 – 1959
Terence Fox became the first Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering and Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Department’s founding in 1946.
Fox obtained a starred first-class degree in Mechanical Sciences from Jesus College, Cambridge, before gaining industrial experience at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in Billingham.
During his tenure as Head of Department, Professor Fox did everything from devising the original teaching course to instituting morning and afternoon tea breaks for staff and students to share ideas (a tradition still enjoyed by the Department today).
He died in London in 1962.
Professor Peter Danckwerts
Head of Department 1959 – 1975
A decorated war hero, Peter Danckwerts earned a George Cross for his work defusing parachute mines dropped on London during the Blitz.
Danckwerts obtained a first-class degree with honours in Chemistry from Balliol College, Oxford before the war and a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then returned to the UK and became a founding member of the Department before succeeding Professor Fox in 1959.
Peter Danckwerts’ work is vital to the fields of reaction engineering and gas absorption and mixing. He served as President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) from 1965 to 1966.
He died in Cambridge in 1984.
Today, the Danckwerts-Pergamon Prize is awarded annually to the best Chemical Engineering PhD thesis produced by a student at CEB.
Professor John Davidson
Head of Department 1975 – 1993
John Davidson entered the Department as a junior lecturer in mathematics in 1952.
He earned a degree in Mechanical Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge where he graduated top of his class. Following this, he worked for Rolls-Royce between 1947 and 1950 before returning to Cambridge to embark on his PhD and later joined the Department of Chemical Engineering.
Alongside fellow Department academic David Harrison, Davidson wrote the influential text Fluidised Particles (1963), which laid the groundwork for the field of fluidisation, earning him the nickname ‘the founding father of fluidisation’.
Davidson was a regular presence in the Department for more than 60 years, from 1952 right up to his death at the age of 93 on Christmas Day, 2019.
Today, the Davidson Inventors Challenge inspires the next generation of innovators to dream up creative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
Image – Trinity College Cambridge
Professor John Bridgewater
Head of Department 1993-1998
John Bridgewater became the first Head of Department to have completed their undergraduate studies at the Department of Chemical Engineering when he succeeded John Davidson in 1993.
He completed his degree in Chemical Engineering in 1959 before going into industry with textile and chemical manufacturer Courtaulds. Research and teaching roles at the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham followed before he returned to Cambridge to become Head of Department.
His research interests were in particle technology, attrition and fluid-solid systems. He served as President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) from 1997 to 1998.
He retired to Portishead, in Somerset, in 2004 and died on 2 May 2021.
Professor Howard Chase
Head of Department 1998-2006
A biochemist, Howard Chase became Head of Department in 1998. His tenure saw a significant refurbishment of the laboratories for chemical and biochemical preparations and the introduction of the MPhil course in Advanced Chemical Engineering, which the Department continues to offer today.
Professor Chase completed his undergraduate studies at Magdalene College, Cambridge, after which he took up research roles elsewhere in the University.
His research area was bioseparations technology, such as chromatography in expanded bed adsorption columns.
After his tenure as Head of Department, he served as Head of the School of Technology from 2010 to 2014.
Image – Magdalene College, Cambridge
Institute of Biotechnology
Professor Chris Lowe
Director of the Institute of Biotechnology 1984 – 2008
Chris Lowe was the driving force behind the foundation of the Institute of Biotechnology, a fully independent institution built around the mantra ‘concept to exploitation’.
Professor Lowe obtained an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham before embarking on a research career that took him from Liverpool to Sweden to Southampton, and finally to Cambridge in 1984, where he founded what was then known as the Biotechnology Centre.
This eventually grew into the Institute of Biotechnology, a multidisciplinary research and teaching institution with strong industrial links and an entrepreneurial ethos.
He oversaw the 2008 merger between the Institute and the Department of Chemical Engineering that formed today’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology.
He retired in 2014.
Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology
Professor Dame Lynn Gladden
Head of Department 2006 – 2010
The Department’s first female Chemical Engineering lecturer became its first female Head of Department in 2006.
Dame Lynn obtained an undergraduate degree in Chemical Physics at the University of Bristol before coming to Cambridge to complete her PhD in Physical Chemistry at Trinity College. She joined the Department as our first female lecturer in 1987.
Her research applies magnetic resonance imaging techniques to chemical engineering challenges.
She oversaw the 2008 merger between the Institute of Biotechnology and the Department of Chemical Engineering that formed today’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology.
She served as the University of Cambridge’s pro-vice chancellor for research from 2010 to 2016 and was knighted for services to academic and industrial research in chemical engineering in the 2020 New Year Honours.
Professor Nigel Slater
Head of Department 2010 – 2015
Nigel Slater had a background in chemistry when he became a lecturer in the Department in 1979. His research area was the manufacture and formulation of biopharmaceuticals.
A student at Cambridge, he completed both his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Sidney Sussex College. He then served as a University Assistant Lecturer until 1985. After 15 years in industry, working for companies such as Unilever and Wellcome Biotechnology, he returned to Cambridge as Professor of Chemical Engineering in 2000.
His tenure as Head of Department saw the beginning of construction on the Department’s current home at Cambridge West.
He was President of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge from 2009 to 2013. He retired in 2020.
Image – Fitzwilliam College Cambridge
Professor John Dennis
Head of Department 2015 – 2018
A prolific researcher, John Dennis has published over 100 papers on combustion, combustion-related topics and the physics of fluidisation.
Professor Dennis completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Cambridge. He then served as an engineering consultant specialising in process issues.
He returned to the Department in 2002 as a lecturer before becoming Head of Department in 2015. As Head, he oversaw the Department’s migration from the city centre to its current home at Cambridge West throughout 2016.
He served as Head of the School of Technology from 2018 to 2023.
Professor Lisa Hall
Head of Department 2018 – 2020
Lisa Hall came to Cambridge as part of the nascent Institute of Biotechnology, where she served as one of two founding academic members alongside director Chris Lowe.
Professor Hall earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Queen Mary, University of London before embarking on a PhD at the University of London’s Faculty of Science.
Her research career took her from France and Germany to London and Oxford before she came to Cambridge in 1985.
Her research centres on analytical biotechnology, particularly on molecular sensors for chemical and biological systems.
Professor Clemens Kaminski
Head of Department 2020 – present
A specialist in unravelling the molecular mechanisms of disease, Professor Clemens Kaminski took charge of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology in 2020.
After earning his PhD at the University of Oxford, Professor Kaminski held a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship and an associate professorship at the Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden. He came to Cambridge in 2001.
His tenure so far has seen the introduction of the Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology tripos for undergraduate students. Prior to this, undergraduate teaching at the Department had been conducted under the auspices of the Natural Sciences tripos.
