John Garside: 1994–1995

John Garside was born in London in October 1941 and obtained a BSc in chemical engineering from University College London in 1963, and a PhD from the same university in 1966.

His next three years were spent as a Technical Officer in the R&D Department of ICI's Agricultural Division in Billingham before moving into academia as a lecturer in chemical engineering at University College London. He remained at UCL until 1982, having also spent one year (1976-1977) on sabbatical as Fulbright Senior Scholar and Visiting Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Iowa State University in the USA.

In 1982 he made the move to UMIST as a professor of chemical engineering and has held a number of other posts, including Head of Department of Chemical Engineering (1983-1988 and 1990-1992), Vice Principal for Academic Development & External Affairs (1985-1987) and Deputy Principal (1986-1987); whilst in 1992 he undertook another sabbatical this time as Monbusho/British Council Visiting Professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan.

John Garside became a Fellow of IChemE in 1986, but his direct involvement with the Institution goes right back to 1972 when he joined the Board of Examiners, a role he was to keep for some 13 years. His contribution to IChemE's work has been varied as he had two spells as Vice Chairman & Chairman of the Papers Sub-Committee of the North West Branch from 1982-1985 and 1988-1990 and was also a member of both the Education Committee (1983-1988) and Research Committee (1985-1988).

In 1985 he became Chairman of the Editorial Advisory board for the Institution's monthly magazine, "The Chemical Engineer" and continued in this role for a six year term, before joining Council in 1992 as an elected member of Council.

As well as his heavy involvement with IChemE, John Garside has held a number of other external positions especially in connection with the Science & Engineering Research Council (SERC) as a member of their Chemical Engineering Committee (1982-1984), the Process Engineering Committee from 1985-1989 (and as its Chairman in 1990-1991), the SERC/DTI Review Panel of the Teaching Company Scheme (1990-1991) and their Engineering Board (1990-1993). From 1984-1990 he was a moderator for CEng Examinations for the Engineering Council and has also held external examining roles at a number of universities: Strathclyde (Department of Pure & Applied Chemistry) - 1985-1988; Cambridge (Department of Chemical Engineering) - 1986-1989; Heriot-Watt (Department of Chemical Engineering) - 1989-1992; Singapore (Applied Chemistry) - 1989-1993; and has been involved with ICSTM (Department of Chemical Engineering) since 1991.

His research specialisation is in the broad field of crystallisation and his expertise in this area has been called upon as a UK delegate on the European Federation of Chemical Engineering's Working Party on Crystallisation since 1990 and as Chairman of the group since 1993.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1985 and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1988.