User:Akukhun/Arvind Varma

Arvind Varma (born in Firozabad, India on October 13, 1947) is the R. Games Slayter Distinguished Professor and Head, School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. His research interests are in chemical and catalytic reaction engineering, and new energy sources.

Education and work
Arvind Varma received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Panjab University in 1966 and his M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick, Canada in 1968. He then went to the University of Minnesota where, in 1972, he completed his Ph.D., under the mentorship of the legendary Professor Neal Amundson. While at Minnesota, he also developed a strong friendship with Professor Rutherford Aris, another pioneer in the field of chemical reactor theory. The influence of these two great men would have a profound effect on Professor Varma’s stellar career.

He remained at the University of Minnesota for one year as an Assistant Professor, and was a Senior Research Engineer with Union Carbide Corporation in Tarrytown, NY for two years before joining the University of Notre Dame faculty in 1975 as an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering. He moved through the ranks rapidly, becoming Associate Professor in 1977, full Professor in 1980, and the inaugural Arthur Schmitt Professor in 1988. His academic leadership includes serving an effective six-year term as Department Chair at Notre Dame (1982-1988), which included the recruitment of several talented faculty as well as considerable growth in quality and stature of both the undergraduate and graduate programs. He was named founding Director of the Center for Molecularly Engineered Materials in the year 2000, and that center rapidly grew to include some 20 faculty researchers and significant extramural funding. In January 2004, he moved to Purdue University as the R. Games Slayter Distinguished Professor and Head of the School of Chemical Engineering.

Professor Varma is a distinguished researcher in the field of chemical reaction engineering for more than 35 years. His contributions include original research publications, authorship of textbook and monographs, editorship of a book series, and professional activities. Through creative experimental and theoretical research, Arvind Varma has made pioneering contributions to the understanding, analysis and design of chemical and catalytic reacting systems, and synthesis of advanced materials, with desired composition and properties achieved by micro structural control. In these areas, he has authored or co-authored 258 archival journal articles, as well as three books and monographs, and he co-edited two books.

Professor Varma’s early work dealt with the analysis of reactor steady-state multiplicity and stability, diffusion reaction in catalyst pellets, yield optimization in complex reaction networks, automotive exhaust catalysis, multiphase reactors, and the development of reactor models validated by experiments. Then, in a series of landmark publications, Professor Varma and his co-workers produced the definitive works on two subjects of central importance in chemical reaction engineering: (1) optimal distribution of catalyst in pellets, and (2) parametric sensitivity and runaway behavior.

Professor Varma is also a leader in inorganic membranes and membrane reactors, which is an emerging area of process technology, and he has focused his research in two directions. First, his group developed a novel technique for the synthesis of thin (a few micrometers thick) dense metal films, deposited on various porous substrates, that is based on the inventive use of osmotic pressure during electroless plating. With this method, his group has prepared palladium-composite membranes with significantly higher hydrogen permeability and enhanced thermal stability than can be achieved by conventional techniques. These membranes can be used in applications such as hydrogen separation from gas mixtures and, by simultaneous removal of hydrogen product, to enhance conversion in equilibrium-limited dehydrogenation reactions. Second, he has demonstrated elegantly, both by systematic experiments and theory, that conversion and yield in commercially important catalytic reactions, such as ethylene epoxidation and methanol oxidative dehydrogenation to formaldehyde, can be improved significantly using an inorganic membrane distributed feed reactor. This finding is significantly influencing industrial reactor designs.

His current research involves various aspects related to energy, with specific programs in hydrogen, fuel cells, conversion of biodiesel waste glycerol to valuable chemicals,and coal/biomass gasification and combustion.

Professor Varma is also a gifted teacher with exemplary dedication and excellence in educating his students. His lectures are intellectually stimulating, characterized by careful preparation and energetic delivery. His painstaking teaching efforts are evident in the countless number of supplementary notes, most of which were handwritten, that he prepared for his classes. These notes form much of his textbooks and monographs.

Fellowships, Honors and Recognitions

 * Honoree, Festschrift issue, I&EC Research (Volume 47, No. 23) 2008.
 * Fellow, AIChE 2008
 * Distinguished University Alumnus, Panjab University 2008
 * Distinguished Chemical Engineering Alumnus (Inaugural batch of 3), Panjab University 2008
 * Honoree, 60th Birthday sessions - I & II, AIChE Annual Meeting 2007
 * Technology and Innovation Award, Industry Week 2005
 * Honorary Fellow (Inaugural batch), Indian Institute of Chem. Engrs 2001
 * Research Achievement Award (Inaugural), University of Notre Dame 2001
 * Chemical Engineering Lectureship Award, ASEE 2000
 * Ernest W. Thiele Award, AIChE (Chicago section) 1998
 * Burns Graduate School Award, University of Notre Dame 1997
 * R.H. Wilhelm Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers 1993
 * Special Presidential Award,University of Notre Dame 1992
 * College of Engineering Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award 1991
 * Indo-American Fellowship, Fulbright Scholar Award 1988-89
 * Fellow, American Institute of Chemists 1987
 * NSF US-India Exchange Visitor 1982

Books

 * Mathematical Methods in Chemical Engineering, A. Varma and M. Morbidelli, 690 + xvi pages, Oxford University Press, New York, 1997.


 * Parametric Sensitivity in Chemical Systems, A. Varma, M. Morbidelli and H. Wu, 342 + xvi pages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 1999; paperback 2005.


 * Catalyst Design: Optimal Distribution of Catalyst in Pellets, Reactors and Membranes, M. Morbidelli, A. Gavriilidis and A. Varma, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 2001; paperback 2005.


 * The Mathematical Understanding of Chemical Engineering Systems: Selected Papers of N. R. Amundson, R. Aris and A. Varma (Editors), Pergamon Press, 829 pages, 1980.


 * Chemical Reaction and Reactor Engineering, J. J. Carberry and A. Varma (Editors), Marcel Dekker, 1069 pages, 1987.

Researchers under his supervision
Varma has supervised more than *** researchers, visiting scientists and graduate students including 38 PhDs, of which many are now professors in other Universities.

Personal life
On the personal front, Arvind Varma met his wife Karen while they were students at the University of Minnesota, and married on August 7, 1971. They have two daughters, Anita and Sophia, both lawyers and married. Anita blessed her parents with a granddaughter, Genevieve, in July 2007, who has changed their lives.