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Joan Brennecke.
The current issue of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry is a Festschrift in honor of Joan Brennecke.
I had the privilege of hearing one of Dr. Brennecke's talks when she spoke at Princeton on her research. She is a recognized world expert on two topics, I personally believe are important to saving what is left to save on this planet, as well as possibly restoring what can be restored. These topics are supercritical fluids and ionic liquids.
The dedication of the issue is here: Preface to the Joan Brennecke Festschrift Jennifer L. Anthony, Burcu E. Gurkan, Keith P. Johnston, and Aaron M. Scurto, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 2022 61 (33), 12061-12063
Some excerpts:
These issues of both the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data and Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research celebrate the contribution to science and engineering made by Prof. Joan F. Brennecke. Joan is currently the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Joan started her education at the University of Texas, receiving her BS in chemical engineering in 1984. She was taught and mentored by a new faculty member at the time, Prof. Keith Johnston (one of the authors of this preface), who is now a friend and colleague. She then went to the University of Illinois for her MS degree in 1987 and Ph.D. degrees in 1989 with Charles (Chuck) Eckert in the field of spectroscopy in supercritical fluids. Her love of the Eckert family tree of researchers was clearly demonstrated after his retirement party with a number of former students. Joan pulled out the list of more than 100 of Eckert Ph.D. students and we recalled their legacies and how Chuck’s charisma rubbed off on them one-by-one. At the University of Illinois, Joan met her future husband, Prof. Mark Stadtherr with whom she has also collaborated professionally on several projects.
Joan began her career as a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame in 1989. By 1991, she had already obtained the National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Young Investigator Award. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994 and Full Professor in 1998. Joan became the chaired Keating-Crawford Professor in Chemical Engineering in 2003 and served as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Energy (2005–2014) and the Sustainable Energy Initiative (2010–2014) at Notre Dame. In 2017, Joan moved back to her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. In recent years, she has also taken on the role of Deputy Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources─CISTAR. In her free time, Joan enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and is an avid birdwatcher.
These issues of both the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data and Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research celebrate the contribution to science and engineering made by Prof. Joan F. Brennecke. Joan is currently the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Joan started her education at the University of Texas, receiving her BS in chemical engineering in 1984. She was taught and mentored by a new faculty member at the time, Prof. Keith Johnston (one of the authors of this preface), who is now a friend and colleague. She then went to the University of Illinois for her MS degree in 1987 and Ph.D. degrees in 1989 with Charles (Chuck) Eckert in the field of spectroscopy in supercritical fluids. Her love of the Eckert family tree of researchers was clearly demonstrated after his retirement party with a number of former students. Joan pulled out the list of more than 100 of Eckert Ph.D. students and we recalled their legacies and how Chuck’s charisma rubbed off on them one-by-one. At the University of Illinois, Joan met her future husband, Prof. Mark Stadtherr with whom she has also collaborated professionally on several projects.
Joan began her career as a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame in 1989. By 1991, she had already obtained the National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Young Investigator Award. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994 and Full Professor in 1998. Joan became the chaired Keating-Crawford Professor in Chemical Engineering in 2003 and served as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Energy (2005–2014) and the Sustainable Energy Initiative (2010–2014) at Notre Dame. In 2017, Joan moved back to her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. In recent years, she has also taken on the role of Deputy Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources─CISTAR. In her free time, Joan enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and is an avid birdwatcher.
Contributions to Science and Engineering
Much of Joan’s research contributions can be characterized as the thermodynamics and physical chemistry of alternative or sustainable solvents for separations and reactions from molecular- to bulk-scale. She is recognized as a pioneer in the field of green chemistry and engineering, specifically the use of supercritical fluids (SCFs) and ionic liquids (ILs). She has over 200 publications from 1989 to the present and almost 300 presentations, seminars, and conference proceedings. Despite these in-depth and multiscale studies into various phenomena with alternative solvents (SCFs, ILs), Joan works to maintain a global perspective on energy, the environment, and society...
...Supercritical Fluids
Joan’s earliest work helped elucidate the behavior, structure, and uniqueness of supercritical fluids. Joan has keen insight for defining creative experimental and theoretical research projects that have led to major advancement in scientific understanding and span both engineering and science. In the 1980s and early 1990s, a large amount of research was conducted to help explain some of the interesting macroscopic properties of supercritical fluids. Joan performed experiments and theoretical modeling to probe the underlying molecular effects of temperature and pressure (density). (1?3) Her work in the highly challenging field of chemical kinetics in supercritical fluids from CO2 to water not only had a profound impact on chemical engineering but also spawned numerous studies by chemists. She discovered a new phenomenon in which the rate constants of bimolecular reactions are enhanced by concentration fluctuations in supercritical fluids...
...Ionic Liquids
Joan presented her earlier work with SCFs and ILs at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Green Industrial Applications of Ionic Liquids (April 12–16, 2000 in Heraklion, Crete, Greece). The news about the conference in the American Chemical Society’s Chemical & Engineering News and highlights of Joan’s work coincided with the timing of her publication with Eric Beckman, (4) which sparked new collaborations and research directions. One new collaborator was Edward Maginn at Notre Dame who was doing molecular modeling and gravimetric microbalance experiments on adsorption in zeolites. The two developed a new gravimetric method of measuring gas solubilities in ILs that resulted in a series of publications led by Jennifer Anthony, a graduate student at the time (one of the authors of this preface). (10,11) Joan has since devoted most of her attention to understanding the molecular nature of ILs and to a variety of their potential applications (beyond combinations with supercritical fluids). She measured some of the most important thermophysical properties of ionic liquids and IL mixtures in the earlier years of the field providing the basis to develop various applications. (12) Her perspective paper in 2001 with Ed Maginn on ILs for chemical processing is often cited as providing the impetus for a large variety of new directions and applications of ionic liquids. (13) She was an early leader in using ionic liquids to absorb various gases, especially CO2. (10,11)...
Joan began her career as a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame in 1989. By 1991, she had already obtained the National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Young Investigator Award. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994 and Full Professor in 1998. Joan became the chaired Keating-Crawford Professor in Chemical Engineering in 2003 and served as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Energy (2005–2014) and the Sustainable Energy Initiative (2010–2014) at Notre Dame. In 2017, Joan moved back to her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. In recent years, she has also taken on the role of Deputy Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources─CISTAR. In her free time, Joan enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and is an avid birdwatcher.
These issues of both the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data and Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research celebrate the contribution to science and engineering made by Prof. Joan F. Brennecke. Joan is currently the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Joan started her education at the University of Texas, receiving her BS in chemical engineering in 1984. She was taught and mentored by a new faculty member at the time, Prof. Keith Johnston (one of the authors of this preface), who is now a friend and colleague. She then went to the University of Illinois for her MS degree in 1987 and Ph.D. degrees in 1989 with Charles (Chuck) Eckert in the field of spectroscopy in supercritical fluids. Her love of the Eckert family tree of researchers was clearly demonstrated after his retirement party with a number of former students. Joan pulled out the list of more than 100 of Eckert Ph.D. students and we recalled their legacies and how Chuck’s charisma rubbed off on them one-by-one. At the University of Illinois, Joan met her future husband, Prof. Mark Stadtherr with whom she has also collaborated professionally on several projects.
Joan began her career as a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame in 1989. By 1991, she had already obtained the National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Young Investigator Award. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994 and Full Professor in 1998. Joan became the chaired Keating-Crawford Professor in Chemical Engineering in 2003 and served as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Energy (2005–2014) and the Sustainable Energy Initiative (2010–2014) at Notre Dame. In 2017, Joan moved back to her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. In recent years, she has also taken on the role of Deputy Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources─CISTAR. In her free time, Joan enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and is an avid birdwatcher.
Contributions to Science and Engineering
Much of Joan’s research contributions can be characterized as the thermodynamics and physical chemistry of alternative or sustainable solvents for separations and reactions from molecular- to bulk-scale. She is recognized as a pioneer in the field of green chemistry and engineering, specifically the use of supercritical fluids (SCFs) and ionic liquids (ILs). She has over 200 publications from 1989 to the present and almost 300 presentations, seminars, and conference proceedings. Despite these in-depth and multiscale studies into various phenomena with alternative solvents (SCFs, ILs), Joan works to maintain a global perspective on energy, the environment, and society...
...Supercritical Fluids
Joan’s earliest work helped elucidate the behavior, structure, and uniqueness of supercritical fluids. Joan has keen insight for defining creative experimental and theoretical research projects that have led to major advancement in scientific understanding and span both engineering and science. In the 1980s and early 1990s, a large amount of research was conducted to help explain some of the interesting macroscopic properties of supercritical fluids. Joan performed experiments and theoretical modeling to probe the underlying molecular effects of temperature and pressure (density). (1?3) Her work in the highly challenging field of chemical kinetics in supercritical fluids from CO2 to water not only had a profound impact on chemical engineering but also spawned numerous studies by chemists. She discovered a new phenomenon in which the rate constants of bimolecular reactions are enhanced by concentration fluctuations in supercritical fluids...
...Ionic Liquids
Joan presented her earlier work with SCFs and ILs at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Green Industrial Applications of Ionic Liquids (April 12–16, 2000 in Heraklion, Crete, Greece). The news about the conference in the American Chemical Society’s Chemical & Engineering News and highlights of Joan’s work coincided with the timing of her publication with Eric Beckman, (4) which sparked new collaborations and research directions. One new collaborator was Edward Maginn at Notre Dame who was doing molecular modeling and gravimetric microbalance experiments on adsorption in zeolites. The two developed a new gravimetric method of measuring gas solubilities in ILs that resulted in a series of publications led by Jennifer Anthony, a graduate student at the time (one of the authors of this preface). (10,11) Joan has since devoted most of her attention to understanding the molecular nature of ILs and to a variety of their potential applications (beyond combinations with supercritical fluids). She measured some of the most important thermophysical properties of ionic liquids and IL mixtures in the earlier years of the field providing the basis to develop various applications. (12) Her perspective paper in 2001 with Ed Maginn on ILs for chemical processing is often cited as providing the impetus for a large variety of new directions and applications of ionic liquids. (13) She was an early leader in using ionic liquids to absorb various gases, especially CO2. (10,11)...
Just a great and important scientist. Whenever I see one of her papers, I always try to stop to read it, because I know something fabulous will be in it.