Institute Professor Georges Belfort has been named an adviser to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of the Academic Steering Committee of the Alexander Grass Center for Bioengineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He also has been selected to chair the Society for Biological Engineering (SBE), a technological community within the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).
Belfort is a member of the Howard P. Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer. The three appointments are the latest examples of his influence and contributions as a global bioseparations expert and one of the world’s most respected academic and industrial chemical engineers.
Georges Belfort
“Georges Belfort is a force in chemical and biological engineering. These appointments are a testament to his international visibility, leadership, and impact,” said Shekhar Garde, dean of the School of Engineering. “His advice and mentorship are sought by the international community, and we expect great things from him in his leadership role in the SBE.”
Belfort recently returned from Beijing, where he was part of a nine-member international team selected to evaluate the Chinese Academy’s Institute of Process Engineering. While there, he also delivered bioengineering and chemical engineering lectures at Tsinghua University, widely regarded as China’s top-ranked engineering institution.
Throughout his career, Belfort has made seminal contributions in liquid-phase pressure-driven membrane-based processes, bioseparations engineering, interfacial science, and cell-free energy production using enzymes. His research on protein misfolding at surfaces and in solution has applications for understanding and treating Alzheimer’s disease. Belfort collaborates extensively with his wife, Marlene Belfort, Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and scientific director of the Life Sciences Initiative at the University at Albany. Currently they are developing a new approach to treating tuberculosis.
His accomplishments have earned Belfort numerous prestigious accolades. Earlier this year, he received the North American Membrane Society’s Alan S. Michaels Award for Innovation in Membrane Science and Technology. Belfort also has been honored with the Alan S. Michaels Award in the Recovery of Biological Products, from the American Chemical Society (ACS) Biotechnology Division, and the ACS E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.
Throughout his career, Belfort has made seminal contributions in liquid-phase pressuredriven membrane-based processes, bioseparations engineering, interfacial science, and cell-free energy production using enzymes. His research on protein misfolding at surfaces and in solution has applications for understanding and treating Alzheimer’s disease.”
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of AIChE and of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and a two-time fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Belfort is a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems and a foreign corresponding member of the Institute of Bologna Academy of Sciences.
He has edited or co-edited three books and has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and 22 book chapters. In 2008, AIChE named him one of the “100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era.”
He has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the University of California at Irvine.