Andreas Acrivos

Andreas Acrivos — chemical engineering innovator

Andreas Acrivos is an internationally recognized educator and researcher who helped transform 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 microelectronics, petroleum recovery and many more industries.

Recruited to Stanford in 1962, Acrivos joined the Department of Chemical Engineering as a professor and helped lead it to global renown. He took early retirement in 1988 to accept an Albert Einstein Chair in Science and Engineering at the City College of the City University of New York, where he served as a professor of chemical engineering and director of the Levich Institute.

Acrivos returned to Stanford in 2007 and is associated with the Flow Physics and Computational Engineering Group of the Mechanical Engineering department.