Bio

Biography

Gyorgy Szekely received his MEng degree in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Budapest, and earned his PhD degree in Chemistry under the European Commission’s Marie Curie Actions from the Technical University of Dortmund. He worked as an Early Stage Researcher in Hovione PharmaScience Ltd, and an IAESTE Fellow at the University of Tokyo. He was a Research Associate working with Professor Andrew Livingston on molecular level separations in Imperial College London. Gyorgy was appointed a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering (2014–2018) and Visiting Academic (2019–2022) at The University of Manchester, and recipient of the Distinguished Visiting Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Gyorgy served as an Adjunct Faculty at Saveetha University between 2016 and 2019. He was an Assistant Professor then promoted to Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering at the Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center at KAUST. The research interests of Gyorgy focus on sustainable separations through a combination of materials science and process engineering. In particular, he has been devoted to address the challenges of sustainable fabrication of membrane materials for harsh environments, and expand the application of these membranes via process intensification. He has over 140 publications, 10 patents, 4 books and 12 book chapters. He serves as an Executive Editorial Board Member for Sustainability Science and Technology, Editorial Board Member for Advanced Membranes, an Associate Editor for the Separation Processes section of Frontiers in Chemical Engineering, and for the Sustainability & Circularity NOW; he is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Applied Polymer Materials, and of RSC Sustainability; and a member of the Early Career Editorial Board of the Journal of Membrane Science. Gyorgy was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in the UK. He has been elected as a council member of the European Membrane Society. He received the Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research’s (I&ECR) Class of Influential Researchers Award, and the ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering Lectureship Awards from the American Chemical Society.

Education

PhD in Chemistry, Technical University of Dortmund, Germany

MEng in Chemical Engineering, Technical University of Budapest, Hungary

Appointments

Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering, Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, 2024 to present

Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering, Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, 2019 to 2024

Visiting Academic, School of Chemical Engineering & Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom, 2019 to present

Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering & Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom, 2014 to 2019

Adjunct Faculty, School of Engineering, Saveetha University, Chennai, India, 2016 to 2019

Secretary General and Board Member, Marie Curie Fellows Association, 2012 to 2016

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, 2012 to 2014

Early Stage Researcher, Hovione PharmaScience Ltd, Lisbon, Portugal, 2009 to 2012

Research and Teaching Awards

‘ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering Lectureship Award’ winner, Long Beach, 2023

‘2022 Class of Influential Researchers’, American Chemical Society, 2022

‘IAAM Sustainability Award’ by the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM), Stockholm, 2022

World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University for the third year in a row, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

Distinguished Visiting Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering, 2018

Received outstanding reviewer awards from multiple journals including Green Chemistry (2019, 2022), Nanotechnology (2019), MDPI (2018, 2017).

‘STAR Award’ for excellence in teaching, Students’ Union, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, 2017

‘Green Impact Labs Gold Award’, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, 2017–2018

‘IAAM Scientist Medal’, International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM), Miami, USA, 2016

‘Imprinting Technology for Wastewater Management’ (shortlisted finalist), Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies Competition, London, United Kingdom, 2016

‘Rewarding Intellectual Property Activity’ (RIPA), Hovione PharmaScience Ltd, Lisbon, Portugal, 2013

Awarded the ‘Best Research Proposal Award’, NanoMemPro organizing committee, Enschede, Netherlands, 13/4/2010

Awarded the ‘First Prize’, National Scientific Students’ Associations Conference, Debrecen, Hungary, 8/4/2009

Awarded the ‘Excellent Student’ prize, Faculty of Chemical and Bioengineering, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary, 22/6/2009

Awarded the ‘The best M.Sc. thesis in Chemical Engineering 2009’, Pro Progressio Foundation, Budapest, Hungary, 19/10/2009

Awarded the ‘Outstanding First Prize’, Scientific Students’ Associations Conference, Budapest, Hungary, 19/11/2008

Qualifications

PhD in Chemistry and MEng in Chemical Engineering

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC)

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET)

Member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (MIChemE)

Board Member and Secretary General of the Marie Curie Fellows Association (2012-2015)

ECAB for Journal of Membrane Science

Editorial Advisory Board member for RSC Sustainability

Academic Editor for Advances in Polymer Technology by Wiley-Hindawi Publishers

Associate Editor for the Separation Processes section of Frontiers in Chemical Engineering

Member of the Society for Molecular Imprinting

Member of the International Society for Molecular Recognition

Member of the International Separation Science Society

Member of the Hungarian Chemical Society