Dr. Dinesh O. Shah became professor at the University of Florida at Gainesville in 1970. He had taken a Ph.D. with Professor Jack Schulman at Columbia and he was now eager to establish his own research. He received appropriate support from two departments at the university, Chemical Engineering and Anesthesiology, and soon he had built up a research group that acquired recognition as one of the leading groups in surface science. His first major achievement was to develop a multi-disciplinary research program in the area of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The program was jointly funded by the Department of Energy and by some 25 oil and chemical companies. The research on EOR carried out at the University of Florida played a major role in the development of the knowledge base in the fields of surfactant and surfactant/polymer flooding as well as in the fundamental understanding of micro-emulsions and related systems. During this period Dr. Shah organized several international symposia and edited two books in the field, books that are still the most authoritative reference books in EOR.
When oil prices went down and the industrial interest in EOR declined Dr. Shah moved on to other areas and through his many years as a university professor he and his research group have been active in many different applications of surfactants and surfactant systems. He has interacted with academic colleagues all over the world and he has been a frequently invited speaker at conferences. He has also worked intimately with companies, in the US, in Europe and in his native India.
Dr. Shah is an extraordinary individual who has contributed very much to the development of surface chemistry. Most chemists stay in one relatively narrow research field where they feel comfortable and where they can dig deeper and deeper for new results. Dr. Shah has had a different attitude to science. During his long career he has covered a lot of ground and he has made important contributions to many sub-areas within surface chemistry, such as monolayers, micelle kinetics, micro-emulsions, foams, packing of surfactants at interfaces, etc. He has
taken up one area after the other, published and presented his findings at conferences, and so moved on to another area. In all these areas one finds Dr. Shah's name on important and frequently cited publications.
Dr. Shah is also a person with a great interest in applications of the science he is engaged in. Surface chemistry is characterized of being a discipline of importance for industrial areas ranging from pharmaceuticals and food on the one side to mineral ore flotation, oil recovery and lubrication at the other extreme, and Dr. Shah has been active in many of these. Through his broad network with companies he has come in contact with all types of industrial problems and he has taken an interest in most of them. In some areas, such as oil recovery, lubrication (including lubrication in biological systems), and biotechnological surface chemistry, Dr. Shah has gained a reputation as one of the leading university professors and his interactions with companies have been extensive.
Research and Consulting Interests:
Current research interests include: monomolecular films, foams, wettability and contact angle, micro-emulsions, liquid crystals, enhanced oil recovery, combustion of coal dispersions in oils and aqueous media, surfactant-polymer interactions, lubrication and surface phenomena in magnetic media, preparation of nanoparticles using micro-emulsions, enhanced filtration of viruses and nanoparticles by surface modification of filters, enzymatic reactions in micellar, micro-emulsion and liquid-crystalline systems, surface phenomena in membranes, lungs, vision, transdermal drug delivery, and anesthesia; nanoparticles for detoxification of blood, Nanomedicine. On site workshop and training courses in applied surface chemistry.
