Messenger - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 14 Fall 1993 Stanley I. Sandler receives Francis Alison Award The $5,000 Alison Award, established by the University's Board of Trustees in l978 and first presented in l979, recognizes the scholarship, professional achievements and dedication of the faculty. Each fall, a distinguished faculty member at the University of Delaware is chosen to receive the Francis Alison Award, in recognition of outstanding academic contributions to the University and to their profession. This year, the news had to be faxed to Heidelberg, Germany, where Stanley I. Sandler was in the midst of a bicycling vacation, while on his way to lecture at a NATO Advanced Study Institute in Turkey. Sandler, Henry Belin du Pont Professor of Chemical Engineering, is the 15th recipient of the award, presented during New Student Convocation. The $5,000 Alison Award was established by the University's Board of Trustees in l978 and first presented in l979 to recognize the scholarship, professional achievements and dedication of the faculty. Sandler, who has won major awards in his field, says the Alison Award is special because "it's nice to be recognized in your own community by the people who know both the good and bad about you." Sandler joined the faculty as an assistant professor in l967. He was promoted to full professor in l973 and served as chairperson of the Department of Chemical Engineering for four and a half years starting in l982. That same year, he was awarded the Henry Belin du Pont professorship. In l992, he served as interim dean of the College of Engineering. Currently, he directs the University's Center for Molecular and Engineering Thermodynamics. His research is in the general area of the physical properties and purification of substances. It has evolved over the years from completely theoretical to include more applied and experimental research. "Some of the research is of immediate use," he said, citing work for the American petroleum industry on the measurement of the properties of hydrocarbon-ether mixtures for the new generation of clean gasolines mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency. He and another colleague in the department-Michael E. Paulaitis, professor of chemical engineering-are working to develop environmentally safe replacements for freons, with funding from the DuPont Co. With support from the National Science Foundation, yet a third area of research has Sandler looking at the properties of water pollutants-a joint project with colleagues at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and the Technical University of Berlin. For the U.S. Department of Energy, his research involves the use of computational chemistry and statistical mechanics to predict the properties of substances. To Sandler, these major research projects are exciting and always evolving, and he credits some of his accomplishments to "the able assistance of excellent undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral research assistants. One of the nice things as we continue to do research is, while we solve some problems, we constantly uncover other new and exciting ones. Also, we are contributing to the education of bright young people in the process." In the future, Sandler plans to devote a larger fraction of his research toward the environment and hazardous chemical waste. "I feel an obligation to society to try to reduce further pollution and to take care of some problems that have already been generated. It is a very exciting area and one in which students enjoy working," he said. In addition to his research, Sandler continues to teach both undergraduates and graduate students, especially in the area of thermodynamics. His textbook on the subject is currently used by many chemical engineering departments in the U.S. and throughout the world, and it has been translated into Spanish, Chinese and Korean. In keeping with his interest in the environment, Sandler and colleague Kenneth B. Bischoff, Unidel Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering, have developed a new chemical engineering course on "Risks, Safety, Hazards and the Environment." Sandler received his bachelor's degree cum laude from the City College of New York and his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. Before joining the University, he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Physics at the University of Maryland. Sandler's wife, Judith, and their three children are all graduates of the University of Delaware.