ChBE Alumnus Dr. Stephen Jaffe, E64, Elected to National Academy of Engineering

Dr. Stephen B. Jaffe

The Department is proud to announce that Dr. Stephen B. Jaffe, one of our distinguished Alumni (E64) as well as a member of the Department Advisory Board, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Jaffe has demonstrated a relentless pursuit of technical excellence in his chemical engineering career, and we are extremely thankful that his achievements have been nationally recognized.

Dr. Jaffe earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University, summa cum laude, and both his M.A. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University. He joined Mobil Research and Development Corporation in 1968 as Research Engineer at the Paulsboro Research Laboratory in New Jersey. In 1980 he became Senior Planning Associate for Mobil Research and Engineering in New York and transferred to the upstream Dallas Research Laboratory in 1983. Steve returned to downstream R&D at the Paulsboro Research Laboratory in 1987. While there he co-invented Structure Oriented Lumping, a method for describing the composition, chemical reaction and properties of complex hydrocarbon systems. Structure Oriented Lumping, the basis of Compositional Modeling, is used to optimize petroleum refinery operations on a molecular scale. In 2000, with the merger of Exxon and Mobil, Dr. Jaffe became a Distinguished Scientific Advisor and effectively championed the development and deployment of Compositional Modeling technology leading to significant business impact. In 2004, he won the Chemical and Reaction Engineering Division award of the AIChE. Dr. Jaffe retired in 2006, the same year he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) was founded in 1964 to provide engineering leadership in an advisory role to the nation and is a member of the National Academies. The NAE operates under the same congressional act of incorporation, signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, that established the National Academy of Sciences. Today, the NAE has a membership of more than 2,000, composed of senior professionals in business, academia, and government who are among the world's most accomplished engineers.

Congratulations, Steve! You have made Tufts University very proud!