Kofke named fellow of American Institute of Chemical Engineers

David Kofke, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).

Fellow status in the AIChE, one of the highest honors a chemical engineer can achieve, is recognition of outstanding contributions to both the profession and the institute. To qualify, one must be a practicing engineer for more than 25 years, a member of the AIChE for 10 years and be sponsored by five peers.

“Being recognized as an AIChE fellow is an honor,” says Kofke. “But the real motivator for me, and most others I know in this field, is the enjoyment of solving interesting problems and telling others about what you’ve done.”

Kofke joined the UB faculty in 1989 as an assistant professor after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in modeling biomolecular interactions. He has since amassed nearly 130 publications in scientific journals in the areas of statistical physics and molecular modeling, and received numerous honors and awards for research and teaching.

Although Kofke’s research may seem complex to most outside his field, his work boils down to improving the ability of molecular simulation to predict how materials will behave based on how molecules interact. His work has far-reaching impact in a range of fields, including pharmaceutical manufacturing, nanotechnology and biochemistry.

Kofke also has co-authored chapters in “Handbook of Materials Modeling” and “Molecular Dynamics: From Classical to Quantum Methods.”

He received a doctorate in chemical engineering from University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in the same field from Carnegie Mellon University.