User:Zoroastrama100/Elmer L. Gaden Jr

Elmer L. Gaden Jr. is widely known as the “father of biochemical engineering." A graduate of Columbia University, he wrote a groundbreaking dissertation that quantified the amount of oxygen necessary to fuel the fermentation process used to produce penicillin. Dr. Gaden established Columbia's program in biochemical engineering. He remained at Columbia for 26 years as a teacher, researcher, and department chair, before becoming dean of the College of Engineering, Mathematics, and Business Administration at the University of Vermont in 1974. In 1979, he joined the engineering faculty at the University of Virginia as the Wills Johnson Professor of Chemical Engineering. In 1994 he retired from Virginia, where he is currently Wills Johnson Professor Emeritus.

Early Life
Gaden, a native of Brooklyn, NY, began to study the sciences during his years at Brooklyn Technical High School in 1936. There he discovered his passion for chemical engineering. During World War II, while still a junior in high school, Gaden enrolled in the U.S. Navy’s V-12 officer training program and subsequently enrolled at Columbia University to obtain his bachelor’s degree. Gaden's hopes for a naval career waned when he was ordered to serve on aircraft carriers in relatively safe areas of the Pacific. After his discharge, he returned to Brooklyn and enrolled at Columbia again, earning his M.S. in chemical engineering in 1947. Gaden’s plans to find employment changed when he was offered a DuPont fellowship, so he remained at Columbia and completed his doctoral degree the following year.

Work and Recognition
Large-scale production of penicillin helped to inspire Gaden’s doctoral dissertation topic. Gaden’s paper explained to chemical engineers the fundamentals of the scientific process behind penicillin production. It also helped them determine how to quantify the amount of oxygen they would need for an effective fermentation. Gaden’s paper changed the scientific scene when he presented it at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in 1950. It was later published in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.

Gaden spent a year as a researcher at Pfizer, Inc. before he was invited to return to Columbia University to establish its first biochemical engineering program. He twice chaired the school's Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. Gaden is known as a demanding teacher who expected much from the thousands of students whom he taught.

In 1986 Gaden received the Egleston Medal for distinguished engineering achievement from Columbia University. A year later, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Gaden’s interest in harnessing biological processes to produce chemicals led him to publish extensively and to found the international research journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering, which he edited for 25 years. Elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, he received AIChE’s first Food, Pharmaceutical, and Bioengineering Award and its Founders Award in 1988. Later, he received the Chemical Engineering Lectureship Award from the American Society of Engineering Education. In 1994, Gaden was honored in a symposium presented by the American Chemical Society, where he also received the Marvin Johnson Award in recognition of his preeminent research contributions to modern biochemical technology.

Today
Gaden remains passionate about interdisciplinary research between biology and chemistry. In 2009, Ohio University and the National Academy of Engineering recognized Gaden as the fifth recipient of the 2009 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, the world's top honor in bioengineering. Retired, Gaden currently lives in Charlottesville and enjoys birdwatching with his wife Jenny.