SenGupta becomes the youngest to win SCI's ion exchange award.

Arup SenGupta, professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering, traveled to Cambridge University in England in July to receive the Ion Exchange Award from the Separation Science and Technology Division of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) in the United Kingdom.

The award is given every four years by SCI to individuals who have made major contributions to the field of ion exchange in their professional careers. SenGupta, the youngest recipient to date to win this award, was recognized for his research in environmental separation by ion exchange.

SenGupta is co-editor of "Ion Exchange and Solvent Extraction: A Series of Advances," which was published by Marcel Dekker Inc.

This year's award coincided with the 50th anniversary of the International Conference on Ion Exchange (IEX'04), which was held at Cambridge during the week of July 5.

Two weeks after accepting the SCI award, SenGupta traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic, where he was one of the plenary speakers at the 11th International Conference on Polymers and Organic Chemistry (POC'04). His lecture was titled "Polymer-Supported Metal Oxide Nanoparticles as Effective Environmental Sorbents." Luis Cumbal, who received his Ph.D. in environmental engineering earlier this year, was the co-author of the paper.