The Dean's Award for engineering achievement is given this year to Professor Emeritus Sol W. Weller, Department of Chemical Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo for his career-long contributions to the practice of engineering.

Dr. Weller received his B.S. from Wayne University in 1938, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1941. During his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, Dr. Weller was a student of Nobel Laureate James Franck. After earning his doctorate, Dr. Weller pursued postdoctoral studies at New York University.

His professional career began with the Manhattan Project from 1943-45. He continued to work in government research as the Assistant Chief of the Coal Hydrogentation Section of the US Bureau of Mines (now the US Department of Energy) from 1945 to 1950. Moving to the private sector, Dr. Weller joined the Houdry Process Corporation in 1950 as Head of Fundamental Research and in 1958 joined Ford Aeronutronic (later Philco-Ford and now Ford Aerospace) as Manager of Propulsion Research. From 1961-65 he was the Director of the Chemistry Laboratory and Acting Director of the Materials Research Laboratory at Philco-Ford.

Professor Weller came to the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1965. His research has been pioneering in several fields - reaction kinetics, coal liquefaction, separation of gases by permeation, catalysts, and standardization of catalyst test methods - and the impact of his contributions in these fields of engineering education and practice has become increasingly important. Dr. Weller has authored over 125 scientific papers as well as a number of chapters in books and articles in encyclopedias, and has 15 patents.

He has served the department, school, and university in numerous ways including: acting chair of the Chemical Engineering Department at three different times - 1968-69, 1972-73, and 1976-77 and director of the Center for Integrated Process Systems Technology, a university-industry technology transfer program. In 1971-1972, while on a leave of absence, he served as a United Nations Technical Expert of Israel.

Both his research and his dedication to teaching have been recognized with many awards and honors. The American Society for Testing Materials' Committee D-32 on Catalysts presented him with their first Certificate of Appreciation, 1978. He received the American Chemical Society's H.H. Storch Award (coal research) in 1981, their E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry in 1982, and their Western New York Section's Schoellkopf Medal in 1984. Professor Weller received the State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1973, the first year of the award's existence, and was named with one other the first Clifford C. Furnas Memorial Professor of Eminence in Engineering and Applied Sciences in 1983 at our School. He has been a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Madrid and Istanbul, a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, and has lectured in China, Australia, Italy and France.

Dr. Weller retired from full-time professorial duties in 1989, but remains an active researcher. In addition to his illustrious career, his contributions to engineering also exist through the many students he taught who now occupy places of prominence in academe and industry both in this country and throughout the world.