Cockrell School of Engineering dean and McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering faculty member Roger Bonnecaze has been awarded the Eugene C. Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology.
This medal is one of the highest international honors in the field of rheology, the study of how matter deforms and flows. Rheology is core to the flow and processing of materials ranging from ceramics to pharmaceuticals to biomaterials.
For 20 years, Bonnecaze has studied the rheology of dense soft particulate matter, such as concentrated suspensions of droplets or microgels. Using unique computational simulations, theory and experiments, Bonnecaze has developed methods to understand and design these materials to impart desirable rheological properties for 3D printing and injectable biomaterials, such as yield stress and viscosity. He has also developed a general thermodynamic theory generalizing these results across concentrated suspensions.
“I’m honored to receive the Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology,” Bonnecaze said, “which really I share with my graduate students, post-docs and collaborators that I have worked with over the years.”
Bonnecaze has served as dean of the Cockrell School since 2021. He joined the engineering faculty at UT Austin in 1993 as an assistant professor of chemical engineering. He served as chair of the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering from 2005 to 2013.
In addition to his research on rheology, Bonnecaze co-founded and co-directed the NASCENT Nanosystems Engineering Research Center, the first National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center led by the Cockrell School. Out of his research in this area, he co-founded SandBox Semiconductor, which provides computational modeling software that automates, optimizes and accelerates the development of semiconductor manufacturing processes.
Bonnecaze will be recognized at the annual Society of Rheology meeting in Boston in October, where he will deliver the annual Bingham Lecture.
