Christine Seymour
Christine Seymour has enjoyed participating in AIChE leadership for more than 25 years. She had the great honor of being the 2018 AIChE President. Christine was the founding Chair of the Pharmaceutical Discovery, Development, and Manufacturing Forum and was the Secretary of the AIChE Board of Directors, on the Society of Biological Engineering (SBEE) Board of Directors, Chair of EBPC, an AIChE Board member, Spring Meeting Program Chair, Process Development Division Chair, and a Process Development Division Formation Committee member. Most of all, Christine has valued the friendships she has made through volunteering with AIChE.
Christine is a Senior Director in Regulatory Chemistry and Manufacturing Controls at Pfizer Inc, leading the regulatory strategy and implementation for a portfolio of projects in drug development, commercial applications and established products. Previously, Chris led chemical process research teams at Pharmacia /G.D. Searle. She has chemical engineering degrees from Lehigh University (BS) and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (PhD).
She is the recipient of the AIChE Epstein Award for Technical Programming, Outstanding Alumni Award from the College of Engineering (University of Massachusetts), Woman of Innovation Finalist (Connecticut Technology Council and Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology), Marquis Who's Who for Excellence in Chemical Engineering, and is an AIChE Fellow. Christine has edited and contributed to several books on pharmaceutical process/product development.
Christine also serves on academic boards including as Chair of the Lehigh College of Engineering Advisory Board, the past Chair of Leigh ChBE Advisory Board, and is a member of University of Massachusetts and University of Arizona ChE advisory boards.
June Wispelwey
June Wispelwey, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is a chemical engineer and business leader with vast work experience in the chemical and bio-pharmaceutical fields. Prior to becoming AIChE executive director, June served as executive director of the Society for Biological Engineering (SBE), a technical community within AIChE, overseeing its successful launch and growth. Under her leadership, SBE developed a successful consortium to advance genomic research on the Chinese hamster ovary cell lines which are important to pharmaceutical and biotechnological production.
Before joining SBE and AIChE, June served as vice president of marketing services at Aventis Behring, the leading therapeutic proteins manufacturer. As a senior executive and key member of Aventis Behring's Operations Management team, she worked closely with global and regional business leaders to identify, design, optimize and implement business processes and systems to increase efficiencies and improve the quality of business information and led efforts in commercial finance, supply chain, market research, market services, and outcomes research.
She spent many years in the chemical industry progressing from process engineering to finance and planning to marketing and finally in business management. Prior to working at Aventis Behring, Wispelwey served as global director of performance chemicals business development and research and development at Lyondell. She turned around the performance of a global specialty isocyanate business, as well as leading the global business development and research development organizations of a $1 billion performance chemicals business. Subsequent to this, Wispelwey worked in process engineering, strategic planning, marketing, research and development, business development and business management. These experiences provided her with an entrepreneurial approach to AIChE initiatives in new technologies and energy.
After earning a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Princeton University and a master's degree in chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, June began her career at ARCO Chemical, now LyondellBasell. She has also completed Aventis executive education program at the Wharton School of Business. She is an AIChE fellow and serves on the Board of the United Engineering Foundation (UEF) and its grants committee. She has served on prior boards including Aventis Behring’s Employee Savings investment Committee and the ARCO Chemical Technology Management Corporation.
The Board of Directors of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers calls upon the chemical engineering community to join together in congratulating chemical engineer Frances H. Arnold, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at The California Institute of Technology — who formally receives the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on this date, Monday, December 10, 2018, in Stockholm, Sweden.
The Academy is awarding Dr. Arnold the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for harnessing the power of evolution through her development of the directed evolution of enzymes. This method mimics the processes of natural selection to steer proteins toward user-defined goals. The new catalysts created by Arnold’s methods have permitted more-environmentally-friendly manufacturing of chemical substances, including pharmaceuticals and renewable fuels.
Dr. Arnold’s co-recipients of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry are George P. Smith of the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Sir Gregory P. Winter of the University of Cambridge, UK, who are being recognized for developing the phage display of peptides and antibodies.
Watch the Ceremony
The chemical engineering profession and AIChE are proud of the brilliant and singular work of our colleague, Frances Arnold — an exemplary chemical engineer and role model for all scientists and engineers. Her work exemplifies the promise of the chemical engineering profession as an engine of innovation, improving the quality of life for society and future generations.
Christine Seymour, President, AIChE
June Wispelwey, Executive Director and CEO, AIChE
Comments
Very happy to hear Dr. Arnold
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