The History of Chemical
Engineering at UMass
The UMass
Chemical Engineering department was founded in 1951 by
Ernie Lindsey. At this time, UMass had only
about 8,000 total students, and the Chemical Engineering program
was also very small: five faculty, twenty seniors a year, and
no graduate program at all.
During
the 1960's, UMass worked to increase its size and number of programs.
The school grew from 8,000 to 20,000 students (currently, UMass
has about 18,000 undergraduate, 6,000 graduate students enrolled.
Of these, 11,000 are residents). In 1962, while UMass was
growing, John Eldridge worked to create a graduate Chemical
Engineering program and increase the undergraduate as well. The
end result in 1970 was 55 graduate students, 11 new faculty, and
a large increase in undergraduate participation as well as in research
funds.
During
this period, in 1966, the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
departments together created the Polymer Science and Engineering
Program, which is presently internationally known.
Leigh
Short took over the program from 1976-1978, and then
handed the position to Jim Douglas as interim department
head. While others were searching for a new leader for the Chemical
Engineering department, Douglas planned new activities to focus
the department, and was then appointed to department head until
1982. Bob Laurence took the position in 1982 and continued
to increase the research activity and new faculty. Mike Doherty
was then department head from 1989-1997. Mike Malone
is currently the head of the Chemical Engineering department.
