Congratulations to Professor Sue Harrison and Professor Eric Van Steen, both from the Department of Chemical Engineering, who have been named as new UCT Fellows. The Council of the University established Fellowships for members of permanent academic staff in recognition of original distinguished academic work such as to merit special recognition. This brings the total to ten UCT Fellows in the Faculty.

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It is indeed an honour for the Faculty to have staff members recognised by the University for their high-quality research work.," said Professor Francis Petersen, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment.

New fellow: Professor Eric Van Steen and Professor Sue Harrison

Professor Sue Harrison has taught actively into the chemical engineering and biotechnology programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the Universities of Cape Town and Cambridge. She served as Head of Department of Chemical Engineering from 1998 to 2002. She holds the South African DST Research Chair in Bioprocess Engineering and is the director of CeBER, the Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research and deputy dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at UCT. In the innovation space, Sue was a founding member and later Chair of the Board of the Cape Biotechnology Trust, and more recently is a Board member of the Technology Innovation Agency.

Professor Eric van Steen is the director of Postgraduate Studies at the Centre for Catalysis Research in the Department of Chemical Engineering. His areas of specialisation include Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, catalysis by gold, nano-materials, molecular modeling of heterogeneous catalytic systems, and reaction kinetics. He was Head of Department of Chemical Engineering from 2003 to 2007.