COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering Dr. G. Kemble Bennett has named Dr. Sam Mannan, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, inaugural holder of the Mike O’Connor Chair I in Chemical Engineering. An international authority on process safety and risk management, Mannan also directs the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center. The center is part of the Texas Enginering Experiment Station, the engineering research agency of the State of Texas and a member of The Texas A&M University System. Mannan joined the Dwight Look College of Engineering faculty in 1997. His research interests are in the areas of abnormal situation management, aerosol research, inherently safer design, quantitative risk assessment, reactive chemicals, modeling of silane releases and flammability research. "Sam Mannan is an outstanding engineer and a worthy and fitting recipient of this chair," said Dr. Kenneth R. Hall, chemical engineering department head and holder of the Jack E. and Frances Brown Chair in Engineering. "His outstanding work in process safety is world renowned." Mannan previously was vice president and national program manager for process safety and risk management operations at RMT Inc., a nationwide engineering services company, in Austin. His work at RMT included catastrophic risk assessment, consequence modeling, hazard and operability (HAZOP) studies, process safety management and risk management, emissions reduction, and petrochemical facilities issues. Before joining RMT, he was an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Mannan is a Certified Safety Professional and a registered professional engineer in Texas and Louisiana. He is the author of more than 80 national and international journal articles, and co-authored "Guidelines for Safe Process Operations and Maintenance," published by the Center for Chemical Process Safety, American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He also edited the recently published 3rd edition of the Lees’ Loss Prevention in the Process Industries. In 2000, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers honored Mannan with the prestigious Service to Society Award. In 2003, Mannan was a consultant to the board investigating the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia and received the Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching from the Texas A&M Association of Former Students and the George Armistead ’23 Faculty Fellow from the Look College. He was named a TEES Research Fellow in 2002. Mannan received a bachelor’s degree from the Engineering and Technology University, Bangladesh, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Oklahoma, all in chemical engineering. The Mike O’Connor Chair I in Chemical Engineering, established in 2000, is one of two in the department endowed by T. Michael "Mike" O’Connor, a chemical engineering graduate of the University of Missouri-Rolla and a Houston businessman whose interests include residential real estate development. O’Connor also is the founding donor of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center.
