Draft:Robert L. Sani

Robert L. Sani (April 22, 1935 - June 20th, 2021) was an American professor emeritus of Chemical Engineering at the University of Colorado. He served on the department faculty from 1976 to 2012, including his time as associate chair from 2007 to 2011. Honors and awards include listings in Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in America, as well as other directories. During his 36-year career at CU Boulder, he taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate chemical engineering courses and was well known for his contributions to the junior and senior labs. Robert's research focused on a variety of challenging chemical engineering subjects, including computer-aided analysis of flow and transport in microgravity processing, mass transfer and shape change effects in electrochemical systems, applied mathematics and numerical methods and more. This resulted in three books and over 100 research publications.

• B.S., University of California at Berkeley, l958
• M.S., University of California at Berkeley, l960
• Ph.D., University of Minnesota, l963

• September 2012-2021, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado
• September 1976-2012, Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Colorado
• September 2008 - June 2010, Associate Chair, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
• February 1983 - June 1983, Visiting Research Associate, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• September 1982 - January 1983, Professeur Associé., l'Université‚ d'Aix-Marseille I, Marseille, France
• June 1979 - June 1980, Acting Director, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado
• Summer l974 - 1983, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Physics Department, Atmospheric Science Division
• 1970 - 1971, Visiting Associate in Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
• 1970 - 1976, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois
• Summer 1970, American Oil Company; research on hybrid computing methods
• Summer 1964, University of Minnesota; research position in the Department of Chemical Engineering
• 1963 and spring Semester 1964, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; teaching and research position in Department of Mathematics
• September 1964 - 1970, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois
• Summer 1958, Western Regional Research Laboratory, U.S.D.A.; research on boiling heat transfer
• Summer 1959, Research Assistant, Lawrence Radiation Laboratory

Robert married his wife Martha Jo in August 1966 while teaching at the University of Illinois. His family includes a step-daughter (Cynthia), Daughter (Elizabeth), and son (Jeffrey). Robert, Martha Jo, and Cynthia settled in Boulder, CO after receiving tenure at the University of Colorado until relocating to Bellingham, WA in 2020.

Robert passed away in Bellingham, WA in the presence of family at the age of 86 after a protracted battle with Myelofibrosis.

His research interests included Fluid Dynamics, Free and Moving Boundary Problems, Electrochemical Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Numerical Methods

• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1976-1990)
• Fluid Dynamics International (1986-1996)

• Sani, R.L., J. Shen, O. Pironneau and P.M. Gresho” Pressure Boundary Condition for the Time-dependent Navier Stokes Equations,” International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, [50],673-682, (2006).
• Sani, R.L., "Projection and Segregated Solution Techniques for Modeling Electrochemical Systems, " Proc. 11th International Colloquium on Numerical Analysis and Computer Sciences,Plovdiv, Bulgaria, (2002).
• Georgiadou, M., Veyret, D., Sani, R.L. and Alkire, R.C., "Simulation of Shape Evolution During Electrodeposition of Copper in the Presence of Additive, " J. Electrochemical Soc., [148], 54-58, (2001).
• Sani, R.L., "Modeling Electrochemical Systems, " Proc. 10th International Colloquium on Numerical Analysis and Computer Sciences, Plovdiv , Bulgaria, (2001).
• Gresho, P.M. and Sani, R.L., Incompressible Flow and the Finite Element Method, Vol 1. and Vol. 2, John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. (2000).
• Li, D., Sani, R.L., Greenberg, A.R. and Krantz, W.B., "Studies of the Thermally Induced Phase Separation (TIPS) Membrane Formation Process, " Proc. China-US AIChE Meeting, Beijing, September (2000).

• AlChe - American Institute of Chemical Engineers
• Tau Beta Pi - Engineering Honors Society

• Editorial Board, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids
• Editorial Board, Int’l. J. Computational Engineering Science
• Editorial Board, Int’l. J. Computational and Numerical Analysis and Applications

• Guggenheim Fellowship, l970-71
• Listed in:   Who's Who in Technology Today
  • Men of Achievement
  • Who's Who in Frontier Science and Technology
  • Who's Who in America
  • Who's Who in Society
  • International Leaders in Achievement
  • International Who's Who in Engineering
• Faculty Research Award, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Colorado, l983

A memorial scholarship fund has been set up to honor the legacy of Robert. This award will be granted to a deserving undergraduate student in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado. [Donation Link]