John Grace, O.C., FRSC, FCAE

Dr. John Ross Grace, born in London, Ontario in 1943, is currently serving as a Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and holds a Canada Research Chair in Fluidization and Clean Energy at the University of British Columbia. He graduated with a B.E.Sc. (1965) from the University of Western Ontario, obtained a PhD from Cambridge University, England in 1968 and was awarded an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Western Ontario in 2003.

From 1968 to 1979, he was a faculty member at McGill University in Montréal, first as an assistant professor and later as associate professor (1971 to 1978) and Professor (1978 to 1979), with a year of leave working in industry in 1974 to 1975. In 1979 he moved to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. There he served an eight-year term as Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and a six-year term as Dean of the UBC’s Faculty of Graduate Studies.

Grace has served as a consultant for a number of companies and has been active in professional affairs, serving as President of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering, Chair of the Chemical Institute of Canada, member of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board, editor of the journal Chemical Engineering Science, a Council member of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and a member of the Advisory Board on Energy Science and Technology for Natural Resources Canada. He recently completed a term as Director of the Division of Applied Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada.

Dr. Grace has authored or co-authored nearly 400 publications, is co-holder of several patents, has chaired several international and national conferences, and been an invited plenary speaker at a number of conferences. He was co-founder and continues to serve as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the small Vancouver-based company Membrane Reactor Technologies Limited.

Awards include the R.S. Jane Award of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (1995), the International Fluidization Award of Achievement, Engineering Foundation (1998), a Canada Council Killam Fellowship (1999 to 2001) and the Career Achievement Award of the Science Council of British Columbia (2003). In addition to being a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Canada, he is a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and of the Engineering Institute of Canada.

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