An engineer by any other name

摘要

I was fortunate enough to be in attendance to see one of ours - esteemed chemical engineer Robert Langer - announced as the winner of the second Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering at a ceremony held in London in February (see pS). The award itself is much deserved, given the huge positive impact his engineering work has had on the health of billions of people across the planet. However, the celebration was cut short for some at IChemE as major news outlets took it upon themselves to describe Langer not as a chemical engineer but a medical engineer, drug delivery engineer, or chemist.