The University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering is pleased to welcome Dr. Joachim Floess. He has joined the department as a senior lecturer following the departure of Dr. Josh Bennett over the summer.
“I am happy to be back again working with students at the University of Illinois. This is an outstanding institution and it is a privilege to be working with the students and faculty of the ChBE department,” Floess said.
His principal teaching assignment is CHBE 431: Senior Design and he will also be involved in cross-curricular design.
Professor Floess attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from there. He worked at General Electric’s research and development center in Schenectady, NY, where he was involved in a coal gasification project for the company’s gas turbine division. After working for a number of years, he decided to return to school to pursue a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From 1986 to 1994, he was an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1994, he moved to Urbana after accepting a position with Cabot Corporation, a specialty chemicals and materials company in Tuscola.
“At Cabot, my research and development work included combustion and aerosol chemistry, the development of a process for making translucent aerogels, and the development of several silica treatment chemistries and treated silica products that are used in a number of commercial applications,” he said.
Outside of work, he enjoys attending concerts at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, bicycling through the farm fields of central Illinois, tending to his fruit and vegetable garden, and going on an annual cross-country ski trip to the White Mountains in New Hampshire.