Edwin Niblock Lightfoot, Jr. (September 25, 1925 – October 2, 2017) was an American chemical engineer and Hilldale Professor Emeritus in the department of chemical and biological engineering at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

. He is known for his research in

transport phenomena In engineering, physics, and chemistry, the study of transport phenomena concerns the exchange of mass, energy, charge, momentum and angular momentum between observed and studied systems. While it draws from fields as diverse as continuum mecha ...

, including biological mass-transfer processes, mass-transport reaction modeling, and separations processes. He, along with R. Byron Bird and Warren E. Stewart, co-authored the classic textbook ''

Transport Phenomena In engineering, physics, and chemistry, the study of transport phenomena concerns the exchange of mass, energy, charge, momentum and angular momentum between observed and studied systems. While it draws from fields as diverse as continuum mecha ...

''. In 1974 Lightfoot wrote ''Transport Phenomena and Living Systems: Biomedical Aspects of Momentum and Mass Transport''. He was the recipient of the 2004

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

in Engineering Sciences.

Education and career

Lightfoot received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1947 and 1950. After graduation he worked as a junior engineer at General Foods in Hoboken, New Jersey. His Ph.D. thesis (''Gasification of Coke)'' was supported by the Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company. After graduate school he worked for Pfizer & Co in Brooklyn where he received US Patent US2787578 A for his development of a commercial process for recovering and purifying vitamin B12. He began his teaching career at the

in 1953. There he co-authored ''

'' with his colleagues R. Byron Bird and Warren E. Stewart. This first edition of this book was in print for 41 years and was translated into five languages. A second edition followed in 2001. In 1974, Lightfoot wrote ''Transport Phenomena and Living Systems: Biomedical Aspects of Momentum and Mass Transport''. Lightfoot was the Hilldale Professor of Chemical Engineering, and upon his retirement in 1996, Hilldale Professor Emeritus in the department of chemical and biological engineering, as the department was renamed. His research interests were in the development of improved separation processes and controlling the dynamics of biological systems. In later life, he turned his attention to ways of developing scientifically informed intuition in bioengineers (in particular quantum biology). Lightfoot was an inventor, holding US patents US2996430A for synthetic ion exchange resin recovery of vitamin b12 (Pfizer), US3094936A for fuel cell for sump pumps (A. O. Smith), US7141171 for membrane cascade-based separation (2006), and an additional patent with Michael Cochrem for membrane cascade-based separation, a counter flow cascade system that features a novel separation technique.

Awards and honors

Lightfoot was a 2004 recipient of the

, awarded by President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

"for his innovative research and leadership in transport phenomena focusing on biochemical and

biomedical engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic). BME is also traditionally logical sciences ...

with application to blood oxygenation, bioseparation techniques, and diabetic responses." As emeritus in 1996 Lightfoot received the AICHE Keynote Speaker Award, for which he delivered the keynote speech at a convention in Chicago that year. Lightfoot was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1992. He was elected to the membership of both the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

for "Contributions to mass transfer and separation processes, and research on quantitative design procedures in biochemical and biomedical engineering" in 1979 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1995. He was one of three members to be elected to both academies. He was a Founding Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (1992). He was awarded the AIChE's William Walker Award for contributions to chemical engineering literature (1985) and its Warren K. Lewis Award for Chemical Engineering Education (1991). In 1985, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Trondheim (formerly Norwegian Institute of Technology and now the Norwegian University of Science and Technology), where he had worked on a Fulbright Research Scholarship in 1962. In 2000, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Danish Technical University (DTU). In the spring of 2016, the University of Wisconsin Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering hosted qbio 2016, a symposium in honor of Lightfoot's 90th birthday.

Books

Lightfoot is the co-author of several influential books in transport phenomena, including the classic textbook ''Transport Phenomena'', which was translated into many languages, including Spanish, Italian, Czech, Russian, and Chinese. * ''Transport Phenomena'' * ''Transport Phenomena in Living Systems: Biomedical Aspects of Momentum and Mass Transport''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lightfoot, Edwin N. 1925 births 2017 deaths Engineering academics American chemical engineers Fluid dynamicists University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Cornell University College of Engineering alumni National Medal of Science laureates Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering