CU-Boulder professor of chemical engineering Richard Noble has been selected to receive the 2003 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award from the University of California at Davis. The award will be presented June 13 as part of the UC Davis commencement ceremony for undergraduate engineers.
The award recognizes an alumnus or alumna of UC Davis who has a record of outstanding professional or technical achievement and service. Last year's recipient was Richard K. Miller, founding president of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.
An expert in chemical separations technology who has taught at CU-Boulder for 22 years, Noble founded and co-directs the National Science Foundation Membrane Applied Science and Technology Center at CU-Boulder. The MAST Center is the leading membrane research center in the United States and has 16 corporate, government and national laboratory sponsors. The center has supported 39 faculty and nearly 250 undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral researchers since its inception in 1990.
Noble earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at UC Davis in 1976 and served on the faculty at the University of Wyoming for five years. He then came to Boulder in 1981 as a chemical engineer with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and an adjunct CU faculty member. He joined the university as a full-time professor in 1987.
He has been recognized with numerous awards for teaching, research and service, including recognition by CU, the University of Wyoming and the American Society of Engineering Education.
He was elected a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2001 and has published more than 200 technical papers and submitted or received 17 patents.
He also received the Bank One Colorado Faculty Community Service Award for 1994-95 for his work with Voices for Children, a nonprofit agency serving abused and neglected children in Boulder County.