Panelists see multidisciplinary future for the field of chemical engineering.

Lehigh's chemical engineering department spent two days in late October celebrating the centennial of its founding, then returned to what department chair Anthony McHugh calls the 'O' revolution that is sweeping the field.

"Chemical engineering education, like engineering education in general, is undergoing an 'O' revolution in bio, opto, nano and info," says McHugh, referring to bioengineering, optical technologies, nanotechnology and information technology.

Lehigh's chemical engineering faculty have joined the university's new interdisciplinary research centers in optical technologies, advanced materials and nanotechnology, and bioengineering and life sciences, McHugh noted. They also operate such established centers as the Emulsion Polymers Institute, the Polymer Interfaces Center, and the Center for Chemical Process Modeling and Control.

Highlight of the two-day conference was a panel discussion, led by McHugh, in which four noted engineers discussed the future of the field.

Panelists were Louis Hegedus, senior vice president for research and development of ATOFINA Chemicals; Gerard Tarzia, vice president and worldwide director of Rohm and Haas Co.'s monomers business; Morton Denn, the Albert Einstein Professor and director of the Levich Institute for Physico-Chemical Hydrodynamics at the City University of New York; and Matthew Tirrell, the Richard Auhll Professor and dean of engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

The panelists agreed that chemical engineering will become even more multidisciplinary, requiring engineers, as Tirrell put, to navigate between "nano-hype" and "nano-phobia."

Tarzia cited ethics, integrity, critical thinking, a global perspective and enthusiasm as some of the traits needed to succeed in the field. He said chemical engineers are uniquely prepared to collaborate with biologists, "because the processes in a cell are really just chemical processes occurring inside a living organism."

Lehigh began granting degrees in chemical engineering in 1902. The chemical engineering department was established half a century later, in 1951.