Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge


The Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology is one of the teaching and research departments at the University of Cambridge. The department trains undergraduate students and conducts original research at the interfaces between engineering, chemistry, biology and physics. It conducts research in collaboration with industrial partners. Its research programmes encompass sustainable reaction engineering, chemical product and process design, healthcare, measurement, and materials science. It conducts biotechnology research with chemical engineering at the science-engineering interface.

History

In 1945, the University received an endowment from Shell for a chemical engineering department and chair. The first Shell Professor was T.R.C. Fox, appointed in 1946. The undergraduate Tripos course began in 1948. Professor P. V. Danckwerts was head of department from 1959 to 1975 and then Professor J. F. Davidson became Shell Professor and Head of department in 1975. He held the post until 1993 when he retired.
in 2008, the Department of Chemical Engineering merged with the Institute of Biotechnology to become the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology.
Until 2017, the department's main centre of activity was the Shell building on Pembroke Street on the New Museums Site, to the south of Cambridge city centre. In 2017, the department moved over to a new building on Philippa Fawcett Drive on the West Cambridge site.
The building was officially opened by the Chancellor of the University, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, on 24 April 2018.

Notable academics

These include heads of the former Department of Chemical Engineering and Institute of Biotechnology which merged to form the current department.