Mines professor earns Gold Medal from Combustion Institute

Robert Kee, the Colorado School of Mines Brown Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, recently received the highest honor of the Bernard Lewis Gold Medal from the Combustion Institute.

Kee received the medal at the 36th annual Symposium on Combustion on Aug. 5 in Seoul, Korea. He earned the award for his research about combustion, especially for leading the development of flow simulations using chemical reactions. He also used the CHEMKIN family for his models.

Kee has been asked to present a plenary lecture about “Combustion Interfacing with Emerging Technologies,” which many experts say is an emerging future field.

“Bob continues to set an example to all of us in research, by continually expanding and adapting his modeling skills to address high-impact technical challenges such as better, safer batteries and membrane reactors for upgrading natural gas,” Greg Jackson, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Mines, said. “We are honored to have a senior colleague as creative, thorough and generous as Bob.”

Kee is also the main developer and creator of the CHEMKIN group of software. This model has dominated the modeling software industry for combustion industries for over 25 years. The software uses strong code architecture and simple use to make it approachable for a variety of users.