Warren Kendall Lewis (21 August 1882 – 9 March 1975) was an MIT professor who has been called the father of modern chemical engineering.
He also co-developed the Houdry process under contract to The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil) into modern fluid catalytic cracking with Edwin R. Gilliland, another MIT professor.
[4] In 1909 Lewis published a paper on "The Theory of Fractional Distillation"[5] which was the basis for subsequent chemical engineering calculation methods.
[1]) In 1920 he became the first head of the newly formed department of chemical engineering at MIT[1] a position he held for 13 years before returning to teaching and research.
In November 1942 Lewis was appointed to chair a committee to survey the Manhattan Project and review all aspects of the bomb research and development, partly because of du Pont's doubts about the plutonium process.