Chemical and biomolecular engineering (ChBE) professor Paul J. A. Kenis has received the Carl Wagner Memorial Award from The Electrochemical Society (ECS). This award was established in 1980 to recognize mid-career achievement, excellence in research areas of interest to the Society and significant contributions in the teaching or guidance of students or colleagues in education, industry or government.
Kenis joined the ChBE Illinois faculty in 2000, where he is the Elio Eliakim Tarika Endowed Chair. Kenis served as the department head from 2011-2022 and was named Director of the School of Chemical Sciences in 2022. His research is focused on reactor and reaction engineering for applications, such as decarbonization of chemical manufacturing and autonomous materials discovery. His electrochemical approaches often seek to use renewable resources such as CO2, air, flue gasses and biomass, for applications such as hydrogen production via ammonia oxidation; CO2 and/or CO reduction to produce ethanol and acetate; as well as oxidation of biomass waste like glycerol to formate.
Among his other honors, Kenis is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society (2019), University Scholar (2011), Beckman Fellow (2007-2008) and recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2006).