American Institute of Chemical Engineers Conference Honors UCLA Professor Yoram Cohen with Invited Talk Sessions
The 2025 annual meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will host four honorary sessions celebrating Yoram Cohen, a distinguished research professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, to celebrate his numerous pioneering contributions to membrane science and technology.
The sessions will feature over twenty presentations, including one by UCLA Samueli professor of civil and environmental engineering Eric Hoek, covering next-generation membrane materials for water filtration and other applications. The final session concludes with a presentation from Cohen on development of advanced water treatment and purification technologies and their extensive implementation in the field over the past four decades. The AIChE annual meeting takes place Nov. 2-6 in Boston, with the four honorary sessions for Cohen Nov. 3-4.
Cohen, who retired in 2023 but remains active in research at UCLA, is widely recognized as an expert in water treatment and desalination, membrane separations, environmental impact assessment and toxicity modeling. For many years, Cohen has been active in helping disadvantaged rural communities by developing and deploying distributed wellhead water treatment systems to provide them with safe potable water.
At UCLA, Cohen is a member of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, a faculty affiliate with the California NanoSystems Institute and an associate faculty with the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. Since joining UCLA in 1981, Cohen co-founded and has served as director of both the Environmental Protection Agency Center of Excellence on Intermedia Transport Research and the California Center for Environmental Risk Assessment. He co-founded the UCLA/National Science Foundation Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology and currently directs the Water Technology Research Center.
Cohen received the 2019 AIChE Clarence (Larry) G. Gerhold Award from the Separations Division, the 2008 Ann C. Rosenfield Distinguished Community Partnership Prize, the 2003 Lawrence K. Cecil Award in Environmental Chemical Engineering from the AIChE. He was elected as fellow ofAIChE in 2009 and North American Membrane Society in 2022. He is a recipient of a County of Los Angeles Commendation, a State of California Senate Certificate of Recognition and a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for his contribution to legislation to protect public health and dedicated service to the community.