Ronald W. Rousseau
School Chair &
Cecil J. "Pete" Silas Chair
Contact Information
Building: Ford ES&T
Office:
1378
Phone: 404.894.2867
Fax: 404.894.2866
email
Mailing Address
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Chemical &
Biomolecular Engineering
311 Ferst Drive, N.W.
Atlanta, GA 30332-0100
Links
Ronald W. Rousseau
Education
B.S. 1966, Louisiana State University
M.S. 1968, Louisiana State University
Ph.D. 1969, Louisiana State University
Bio
Ronald W. Rousseau holds the Cecil J. “Pete” Silas Endowed Chair and also chairs the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a position he has held since 1987. He was a member of the faculty at North Carolina State University for over 17 years, served as a visiting professor at Princeton University, and received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Louisiana State University.
Both teaching and research are important to Dr. Rousseau. He has taught undergraduate chemical engineering courses in essentially all of the core areas of the discipline and graduate courses in separations and mass transfer. He is co-author of Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes (Wiley 1978, 1986, 2000), an undergraduate text used by more than 80% of the chemical engineering programs in the United States, and editor of the Handbook of Separation Process Technology (Wiley, 1987). His research has explored numerous areas related to separation processes, and he has published more than 170 journal articles and given more than 200 presentations on his research. In recognition of his contributions to the field of separations, he was selected to receive the Clarence G. Gerhold Award of the Separations Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Dr. Rousseau is a Fellow of both AIChE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received the Warren K. Lewis Award for contributions to chemical engineering education from AIChE. He was elected to the LSU Engineering Hall of Distinction in 1991.
Dr. Rousseau is an executive editor of Chemical Engineering Science, a member of the Publication Board of Chemical Engineering Education, and a topic editor for Crystal Growth and Design; he has been a member of the advisory boards of the Wiley Series in Chemical Engineering and of Separations Technology, a consulting editor for the AIChE Journal, and an associate editor of the Journal of Crystal Growth. He has served as Chair of the Council for Chemical Research and a member of the Board of Directors of AIChE.
Research Interests
Processes involving separation and/or purification are of great practical importance and are at the core of the discipline of Chemical Engineering. Dr. Rousseau has focused his research on such processes and related phenomena. A large body of Dr. Rousseau's work has been on crystallization, which is one of the most important means by which separation or purification is conducted. He has led studies of crystal nucleation and growth and the role these phenomena have in determining crystal morphology, purity and size distributions. He is particularly interested in the application of crystallization technology to the recovery and purification of high-value-added chemicals, including biologically produced materials.