Long Term Achievement Lecture
Roger, W. H. Sargent
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College
Process Systems Engineering - Retrospection and insights for the future
The lecture will start by examining the concepts which in
the past have given rise to new paradigms, and hence to improved
understanding of the problems and advances in solution techniques. I will
then attempt to draw these together and identify both promising lines for
future investigation and areas in need of new ideas.
Prof. R. W. H. Sargent was born in 1926 at Bedford, England. He got his B.Sc in Chemical
Engineering from Imperial College in 1947 and received his PhD from the
same University in 1954. He became Professor of Chemical Engineering at
Imperial College in 1962 and obtained the D.Sc in Engineering in 1977. As
an eminent member of Imperial College’s faculty and researcher, he was
appointed as Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical
Technology in 1975, position that he occupied till 1988. In 1989 he
distinguished himself as the director of the Centre for Process Systems
Engineering, where since then he has been transmitting to a large number
of researchers, his wide knowledge in process systems engineering,
enlarging his prestigious and notorious contributions to the area. His
research interests are mainly in computing techniques for mathematical
modelling , process design, control and in the development and analysis of
numerical methods. In addition to Imperial College activities, Prof.
Sargent distinguished himself as an active member of several national and
international corporations namely the Institution of Chemical Engineers,
which he joined in 1960 and where he became a president in 1973, and also
the Science Research Council, the Council of Engineering Institutions, the
European Federation of Chemical Engineering, the Ministry of Technology,
the Department of Trade and Industry, the University Grants Committee, the
University Funding Council, the British Council and the British-French
Mixed Cultural Commission, amongst others, where he acted as a member of
several boards and committees. His research and academic contributions
have been recognized through a series of prestigious honours, including
Founder Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (1976), Honorary
Fellowship of the City and Guilds of London Institute(1977), Silver Medal
of the “Ville de Paris”(1986), Doctor honoris causa of the Institut
National Polytechnique de Lorraine (1987) and of the University of Liège
(1995), Richard W. Wilhelm Lectureship of University of Princeton (1994),
Distinguished Research Lectureship in Chemical Engineering of Carnegie
Mellon University (1996) and the Nordic Process Control Award (2003).
Prof. RWH Sargent along his long and rich career as a scholar, gave more
than fifty invited lectures and published over a hundred papers and while
creating a school in process systems engineering where more than fifty PhD
students have been involved. Prof. RWH Sargent retired in 1992 and became
an Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College. In
1993, he was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering in
the U.S. in recognition of the excellence he has achieved in the field of
Chemical Engineering and with the election citation “for leadership in the
process systems engineering area”.