Stanford Engineering Heroes

Andreas Acrivos

Andreas Acrivos is an internationally recognized educator and researcher who has had a transformative impact on the field of chemical engineering, especially in the areas of fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer. His research on the flow of viscous fluids made it possible to model, analyze, and engineer chemical and fluid processes – with applications in numerous industries, including petroleum recovery and microelectronics. Upon receiving his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1954, Acrivos joined the Chemical Engineering faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He was recruited by Stanford in 1962 as a professor of Chemical Engineering and was instrumental in transforming that department into one of international stature. In 1988, after accepting one of New York State’s Albert Einstein Chairs in Science and Engineering, he took early retirement from Stanford and joined the City College of the City University of New York as a professor of Chemical Engineering and director of the Levich Institute. He returned to Stanford in 2007 and is associated with the Flow Physics and Computational Engineering group of the Mechanical Engineering department. He has received numerous awards from engineering and scientific organizations in the United States, including the 2001 National Medal of Science, and is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.