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Arnold Stancell

MLK Visiting Professor 1998-1999 Professor, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been in the minority… It will take such a small committed minority to work unrelentingly to win the uncommitted majority. Such a group may transform America’s greatest dilemma into her most glorious opportunity.
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Background

Arnold F. Stancell is a professor of chemical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds a BS in chemical engineering (magna cum laude, 1958) from the City College of New York, CUNY. He went on to become the first African-American to earn a PhD in chemical engineering (1962) from MIT.

Interests

In his work, Stancell researches polymer and petrochemical processes; plasma modification of surfaces membrane separation; and plasma reactions in microelectronics processing. Over the course of a 31-year career at Mobil Oil Corporation, Stancell would hold senior management positions in plastics manufacturing, corporate planning, marketing and refining, and exploration and production, and his research on chemical and plastic products earned him numerous patents.

In 1970, Stancell accepted an invitation from Prof. Raymond Baddour, then head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, to join its faculty. As a visiting associate professor of chemical engineering, Stancell taught a graduate-level thermodynamics course and continued research on plasma reactions at surfaces that he started at Mobil.

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