Academic promotions in the Department of Chemical Engineering

Congratulations to Dr Ronny Pini, Dr Jerry Heng and Dr Cleo Kontoravdi who have been promoted to more senior academic positions this year.

The Department of Chemical Engineering is pleased to announce that three academic members of staff have been promoted. Dr Jerry Heng and Dr Cleo Kontoravdi were promoted to Readers, while Dr Ronny Pini was promoted to Senior Lecturer.

Professor Nilay Shah, Head of Department of Chemical Engineering, said: "All three academics have made excellent contributions to education, research and life in the Department and I’m glad to see that this has been recognised by the College."

Dr Jerry Heng, Reader

Dr Heng did his undergraduate degree in the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia then completed his PhD in the Department of Chemical Engineering in 2006. He became a Research Associate in 2006, Lecturer in 2007, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer position in 2011. He has been an EPSRC Manufacturing the Futures Early Career Fellow since 2016. His research interests include developing approaches to control nucleation and crystallisation of small molecule organic solids and developing biocrystallisation for purification and isolation of biopharmaceuticals. He has been involved with the teaching of the subjects Biochemical Engineering and Particle Engineering.

Dr Cleo Kontoravdi, Reader

Dr Kontoravdi started her academic career as an undergraduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering in 2002, then completed her PhD in 2007, and after a year in industry, she became a Lecturer in 2007. Her main research focus is on the systematic integration of model-based tools, such as sensitivity analysis, design of experiments and optimisation, with experimentation on mammalian cell culture systems. She has been involved with the teaching of the second-year subject Process Dynamics and Control. She has also been the Athena SWAN coordinator for the Department of Chemical Engineering, winning the Silver Award in 2014.

Dr Ronny Pini, Senior Lecturer

Dr Pini completed his studies in ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and Stanford University (USA). He joined our Department as a Lecturer in January 2015 after being Assistant Professor in the Colorado School of Mines (USA). His research is focused on questions around the physics of fluid flow and phase-equilibria in rocks and other porous media. He was recently awarded the International Adsorption Society Award for Excellence in Publications by a Young Member of the Society. He is involved in the teaching of first and final year design projects as well as Process Heat Transfer.

Article written by Dora Olah, an Undergraduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering.