Professor Clive Davies honoured by the American Institution of Chemical Engineers

Professor Clive Davies, (School of Food and Advanced Technology, Massey University and Riddet Institute Associate Investigator) was honoured by the American Institution of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) last week.  Clive received the 2020 PSRI Fluidization and Fluid Particle Systems Award from the Particle Technology Forum, a sub-discipline group of AIChE.  This was presented at a virtual meeting, replacing the 2020 AIChE Annual Meeting that normally attracts over 5000 attendees.  The award is for his impact over four decades on the fields of fluidization, particle technology and solids handling, both as an academic and as an industrial researcher, and for his wide-ranging contributions to the chemical engineering profession. Professor Davies was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in 2018 and at the time was the only person in New Zealand to have been given the honour.

Clive was born in Trinidad and went to school in Barbados before winning a Texaco Trinidad Inc. scholarship to study Chemical Engineering at Imperial College, London. He stayed on to do a PhD on fluidized combustion of heavy fuel oils.  In the mid-1970s, he emigrated to New Zealand to take up a post-doctoral fellowship at The University of Canterbury. A few years later he moved to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), in Gracefield, Lower Hutt.  There, Clive joined the Mineral Processing Section, and later led a Chemical and Processing Engineering group with interests across the food, agriculture, manufacturing and energy sectors.  By 1999, he was appointed Distinguished Scientist and had invented several  innovative industrial solutions. This includes Air Lift Technology for dairy powders, demonstration of foam technology for the separation of dairy proteins, and more niche problems such as washing of echinacea roots and processing of amaranth seed.  Clive became Professor of Particle and Process Engineering at Massey University in 2003.

Over the years, Clive has developed an extensive network of New Zealand, Australian and international collaborators.  The award recognises his service to the profession through roles in conference organisation, assessment of professional Chemical Engineering qualifications, governance, and technical activity of professional societies. He has supported many colleagues in their career advancement, providing them with peer recognition.  He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, and Fellow of Engineering New Zealand.

Professor Davies delivered an academic lecture on being presented with the prize, featuring his career highlights in the field. The 2020 PSRI Fluidization and Fluid Particle Systems Award lecture, delivered by Professor Clive Davies, is available here.

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