Roger Sargent (chemical engineer)

Born on 14 October 1926, Sargent was educated at Bedford School and at Imperial College London where he received a BSc and a PhD in chemical engineering.

He always pushed for the highest degree of competence in all his students; the computer was never to be used as a way of avoiding important issues: "they must learn the common standard techniques and know something of such questions as rounding errors, stability, and rate of convergence.

It is only when we learn of those whose academic origins can be traced back to Sargent, do we realise the full contribution he has already made, not only through his own work, but by instilling his enthusiasm for excellence into those who later have taken up the challenge.

Sargent's vision, leadership and guidance has led the establishment of PSE as the development of systematic techniques for process modelling, design, and control.

[citation needed] His software "SPEEDUP" (Simulation Programme for the Economic Evaluation and Design of Unsteady-State Processes) was first described in publication in 1964, and this package was widely used in research and industry more than 25 years later.

[citation needed] His research and academic contributions have been recognised through a series of prestigious honours, including founder-fellow[8] of the Royal Academy of Engineering (1976), honorary fellowship of the City and Guilds of London Institute (1977), Silver Medal of the "Ville de Paris" (1986), Doctor honoris causa of the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine (1987) and of the University of Liège (1995), Fellow of Imperial College (1990), Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Richard W. Wilhelm Lectureship of Princeton University (1994), distinguished research lectureship in chemical engineering of Carnegie Mellon University (1996) and the Nordic Process Control Award (2003).