75 years of
chemical engineering at Berkeley BY C. JUDSON KING
2022 is not only the 150th anniversary of the College of Chemistry, but also the 75th anniversary of the start of the chemical engineering program at Berkeley. Although the 75-year-old program is half the age of the College, it is still relatively young as chemical engineering programs go. Programs at most other universities were formed earlier in the twentieth century or even at the end of the nineteenth. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers traces back to 1908.
18
The chemical engineering program that has thrived at Berkeley is a product of its times. The Allies in World War II had derived considerable advantage from several highly technical war-related projects, most notably the development of radar and the Manhattan Project for the atomic bomb in the United States and the development of the proximity fuse in the United Kingdom. These engineering projects had been carried out largely by scientists because there was a growing belief that the education of the engineers in that era did not contain sufficient science and math for them to contribute well to such rapid and innovative advances. This view set off a national wave to remedy the situation. When the establishment of a full program in chemical engineering was explored seriously in 1945, both the College of Chemistry and the College of Engineering were interested and made competing proposals. Chemistry faculty member Joel Hildebrand was a longtime member of the Academic Senate’s Committee on Budget and Interdepartmental Relations. He argued that the need for more science and mathematics was a cogent reason for placing chemical engineering within the College of Chemistry, and that rationale carried the
College of Chemistry, UC Berkeley
