Preface to the special section in memory of Professor Kenneth F. O'Driscoll

Abstract

We are honoured to dedicate this special section of The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering to the memory of Professor Kenneth Francis O'Driscoll, a beloved mentor, friend, and outstanding scientist who passed away on 4 August 2020 in Kitchener,Ontario. The overwhelmingly enthusiastic response we had from former students and colleagues to the invitation to contribute to this special section is testimony to the many lives Ken touched during his career. This special section features 12 invited papers from researchers around the world, reflecting the extent and depth of Ken's scientific legacy in polymer science and engineering. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Ken was born 22 July 1931 in Staten Island, New York City. He attended the prestigious Regis High School in Manhattan and then the Pratt Institute for his BChE (1952). He moved to Princeton University for his graduate studies under the supervision of Arthur V. Tobolsky in the Department of Chemistry (MA 1957, PhD 1958. Following his doctoral studies, Ken accepted his first academic position in Chemical Engineering at Villanova University (1958-1966) and then SUNY Buffalo (1966-1970 before moving to the University of Waterloo (1970Waterloo ( -1992, where he served as Professor and Department Chair. He was the Founding Director of the Institute for Polymer Research at the University of Waterloo. In 1996, Ken was named Distinguished Professor Emeritus.Ken published over 200 research papers on a wide range of topics in polymer science, including polymer reactor engineering (with Alex Penlidis, he co-founded the journal Polymer Reaction Engineering, which has become Macromolecular Reaction Engineering), hydrogels (he developed the hydrophilic contact lens, better known as the soft contact lens), and