Reza Barati Awarded Don W. Green Professorship
Over the last year, alumni of the Chemical & Petroleum Engineering Department have joined forces and dollars to create a brand-new named professorship in honor of Emeritus Distinguished Professor Don W. Green. Among the generous donors were Zach and Melissa Holland who provided a $600,000 gift for this purpose in August 2021. As of January 2022, we are excited to announce that Associate Professor Reza Barati will be the first to hold this prestigious professorship.
About Don W. Green, in addition to serving as department chair and co-founding the Tertiary Oil Recovery Program (TORP), Dr. Green, who retired in 2009 after 45 years of teaching at KU, won KU’s Honor for the Outstanding Progressive Educator (or H.O.P.E.) Award in 1988 and was a finalist seven more times. (H.O.P.E. is the only KU award for teaching excellence bestowed exclusively by students.) He received the School of Engineering Gould Award for Outstanding Teaching five times and in 2001 received the Chancellors Club Teaching Award. He is also a 2015 recipient of the School of Engineering’s Distinguished Engineering Service Award, the highest honor bestowed by the school.
Dr. Reza Barati has long ties with KU and CPE. He earned his PhD in the department in 2010. He joined the faculty body shortly after and has been extremely active in research, teaching, and mentoring graduate students. In 2020, he became the new Director of TORP. He has earned awards such as the Men of Merit, Miller Scholar Award, and the Oenbring Teaching Award.
About this professorship, Dr. Barati said, “Don W. Green’s teaching, research, service, and supportive personality has had an overarching impact on the success of thousands of students. His positive and inclusive approach towards day-to-day problems brought faculty and students from totally different backgrounds together and generated collaborative efforts some of which are still going on. His deep understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) impacted some of the first initiatives that have been active in this area at both school and university level. This is a great honor for me to be the recipient of the first prestigious Don W. Green Professorship. Having had Don as a teacher and a mentor, this Professorship is very meaningful for me.
"In response to the requests received from the industry and several of our advisory board members to modify our program and add topics related to contribution of petroleum engineers in the ongoing energy transition applications, I have proposed to work with a PhD student (to be hired on a 25% GTA/25% GRA appointment) to develop courses in the area of natural gas engineering while supporting some of the efforts related to a new CCUS certificates/degree. We will also work on research projects related to development of new methods and technologies that are required for “energy transition” to materialize.”
The department congratulates Dr. Barati and looks forward to watching how this professorship can positively impact course offering, research, and student outcomes.