Alumnus Abraham Lenhoff elected to the National Academy of Engineers

Abraham Lenhoff (PhDChE ’84), an alumnus of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Lenhoff is the Allan P. Colburn Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware.  He is one of 130 U.S.-based and 28 international members elected to the academy’s 2026 class.

NAE members are among the world’s most accomplished engineers and are chosen for their significant contributions to engineering research, practice or education.

The academy recognized Lenhoff for his research addressing protein-protein, protein-surface and colloidal interactions leading to major advances in protein purification technologies.

Lenhoff’s research seeks to analyze, control and exploit molecular interactions involving proteins and colloidal particles including theoretical and experimental work dealing with both the fundamentals — transport, kinetic and thermodynamic phenomena — and their interaction in the process environment.

Lenhoff’s PhD mentor was Edwin Lightfoot, a legendary UW-Madison researcher who pioneered the field of transport phenomena in biological systems, a legacy Lenhoff carries on.