Grant elected as AIChE president for 2022

Dr. Christine S. Grant, associate dean and faculty member in the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University, has been elected president of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChe) for the 2022 term.

Grant is a faculty member in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State and is the inaugural Associate Dean of Faculty Advancement in the College of Engineering. She is currently on an IPA assignment with the National Science Foundation as a program director helping to broaden participation in engineering among historically underrepresented groups.

Founded in 1908, AIChE is the world’s leading organization for chemical engineering professionals, with over 45,000 members from more than 90 countries. Serving as AIChE president is a three-year commitment that spans the pre-presidential year, the presidential year and the post-presidential year. Deborah L. Grubbe, owner and president of Operations and Safety Solutions, LLC, will become president of AIChE in 2021, while Grant will serve the year as president-elect before becoming president in 2022.

Grant is an AIChE Fellow and has served as a member of the Board of Directors, as chair of the Minority Affairs Committee and as a member of the Chemical Technology Operating Council, the Awards and Nominating committees and the steering committee for the Henry T. and Melinda C. Brown Endowment for the Education of Underrepresented Minority Chemical Engineers.

She is also a recipient of the Institute’s William W. Grimes Award for Excellence in Chemical Engineering. Dr. Grimes was the first African American Fellow of the AIChE. The award recognizes a chemical engineer’s outstanding achievements in the chemical engineering profession and as a distinguished role model for underrepresented minorities.

Grant established the College’s Faculty Advancement unit in 2008, when she approached the dean of the College, Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega, about creating an office and position to meet the professional development needs of the faculty.

She has been recognized with achievement awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the National Organization of Black Chemists & Chemical Engineers, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Council for Chemical Research, among others.

In recognition of her successes in promoting STEM careers among underrepresented groups, NSF honored her with the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, which is “one of the nation’s highest honors for mentors who work with underrepresented groups to develop fully the nation’s human resources in STEM.”

Grant earned her Sc.B. degree in chemical engineering at Brown University and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering at Georgia Tech. She was hired as the first African American woman faculty member in the College of Engineering in 1989.