“This award is particularly important to me because it recognizes the accomplishments of my graduate students. I have truly been blessed with exceptional graduate students. Their creativity and hard work have taken our work to levels of excellence that I could not have imagined when I first started. This Creative Research Award is a credit to my students, and I am proud to share it with them.”

Mario R. Eden is the director of an NSF-IGERT program on Integrated Biorefining and the acting director of the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering. His main areas of expertise include chemical process design, integration and optimization, and molecular synthesis and product design. He has published one edited book and more than 100 refereed papers/book chapters, and has given more than 300 presentations at national and international meetings. He has been the principal investigator or significant co-principal investigator on more than $17 million in extramurally funded research contracts and grants. Eden was elected director of the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICHE) and is a trustee of Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE) Corporation. He is the recipient of several awards, including the AIChE CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Auburn Engineering Research Award (both junior and senior), the William F. Walker Teaching Award (twice), the Fred H. Pumphrey Teaching Award for Excellence (twice), and has been selected as the Outstanding Faculty Member in Chemical Engineering four times. He is currently directing the research of six doctoral students and one postdoctoral researcher. He is joined by his girlfriend, Leeja Einglett, and her son, Dusty.

“This award is particularly important to me because it recognizes the accomplishments of my graduate students. I have truly been blessed with exceptional graduate students. Their creativity and hard work have taken our work to levels of excellence that I could not have imagined when I first started. This Creative Research Award is a credit to my students, and I am proud to share it with them.”

Mario R. Eden is the director of an NSF-IGERT program on Integrated Biorefining and the acting director of the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering. His main areas of expertise include chemical process design, integration and optimization, and molecular synthesis and product design. He has published one edited book and more than 100 refereed papers/book chapters, and has given more than 300 presentations at national and international meetings. He has been the principal investigator or significant co-principal investigator on more than $17 million in extramurally funded research contracts and grants. Eden was elected director of the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICHE) and is a trustee of Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE) Corporation. He is the recipient of several awards, including the AIChE CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Auburn Engineering Research Award (both junior and senior), the William F. Walker Teaching Award (twice), the Fred H. Pumphrey Teaching Award for Excellence (twice), and has been selected as the Outstanding Faculty Member in Chemical Engineering four times. He is currently directing the research of six doctoral students and one postdoctoral researcher. He is joined by his girlfriend, Leeja Einglett, and her son, Dusty.