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Editorial for the Ora Kedem Honorary Issue
Journal of Membrane Science 239 (2004) 1
Editorial
Editorial for the Ora Kedem Honorary Issue
This special issue recognizes and celebrates Ora Kedem’s unique position in our discipline and community. Her contributions span more than 50 years of leadership in key areas of science and technology. During this time, she has truly helped define the framework of our field and added totally new insights that are still motivating fundamental inquiry in allied disciplines around the world. Seminal work in desalination theory and practice, in biophysics and in non-equilibrium thermodynamics are associated with her name: any one of these alone would justify a place of honor in our community. A network of colleagues, friends and admirers appreciate her special characteristic to look beyond existing scientific boundaries to enable membranes to positively impact the world through better fundamental understanding. I am certainly one of these admirers. Ora serves as an active member of the distinguished Advisory Board for the Journal of Membrane Science. At ICOM 2002, she caught me for a valuable conversation about the need to push harder to integrate bio-related topics into the Journal and into our broader membrane community. Within this special issue, readers will enjoy invited papers contributed in Ora’s honor. The immediately following summary identifies Ora’s key contributions and tracks her development in the late 1940’s from a physical chemist into a macromolecular scientist and finally into an early pioneer in membranes for desalination. The well-known Kedem–Katchalsky equation is among the
0376-7388/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.memsci.2004.04.001
most cited frameworks for understanding complex membrane phenomena within the framework of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Ora’s many honors and awards, also summarized in the following write-up, recognize her crucial contributions to the science, organization and development of our field of membranes. To capture the essence of Ora’s importance to our field, however, not only her scientific contributions must be mentioned. Her warm and generous nature, which seeks to unite our complex community across its many subgroups, is as important as her seminal scientific contributions. As a special active transport agent who has contributed to both biomembranes and synthetic membranes, she has promoted communication and cooperation between these two sub communities: for this, I especially salute her. I hope our community will not only enjoy this special issue, but use it as a reason to contact Ora and congratulate and thank her for what she means to our community. William J. Koros School of Chemical Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology, 778 Atlantic Drive Bunger-Henry Building, Atlanta, GA 30332-0100, USA Tel.: +1-404-3852864; fax: +1-404-3852683 E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 6 May 2004
Editorial
Editorial for the Ora Kedem Honorary Issue
This special issue recognizes and celebrates Ora Kedem’s unique position in our discipline and community. Her contributions span more than 50 years of leadership in key areas of science and technology. During this time, she has truly helped define the framework of our field and added totally new insights that are still motivating fundamental inquiry in allied disciplines around the world. Seminal work in desalination theory and practice, in biophysics and in non-equilibrium thermodynamics are associated with her name: any one of these alone would justify a place of honor in our community. A network of colleagues, friends and admirers appreciate her special characteristic to look beyond existing scientific boundaries to enable membranes to positively impact the world through better fundamental understanding. I am certainly one of these admirers. Ora serves as an active member of the distinguished Advisory Board for the Journal of Membrane Science. At ICOM 2002, she caught me for a valuable conversation about the need to push harder to integrate bio-related topics into the Journal and into our broader membrane community. Within this special issue, readers will enjoy invited papers contributed in Ora’s honor. The immediately following summary identifies Ora’s key contributions and tracks her development in the late 1940’s from a physical chemist into a macromolecular scientist and finally into an early pioneer in membranes for desalination. The well-known Kedem–Katchalsky equation is among the
0376-7388/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.memsci.2004.04.001
most cited frameworks for understanding complex membrane phenomena within the framework of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Ora’s many honors and awards, also summarized in the following write-up, recognize her crucial contributions to the science, organization and development of our field of membranes. To capture the essence of Ora’s importance to our field, however, not only her scientific contributions must be mentioned. Her warm and generous nature, which seeks to unite our complex community across its many subgroups, is as important as her seminal scientific contributions. As a special active transport agent who has contributed to both biomembranes and synthetic membranes, she has promoted communication and cooperation between these two sub communities: for this, I especially salute her. I hope our community will not only enjoy this special issue, but use it as a reason to contact Ora and congratulate and thank her for what she means to our community. William J. Koros School of Chemical Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology, 778 Atlantic Drive Bunger-Henry Building, Atlanta, GA 30332-0100, USA Tel.: +1-404-3852864; fax: +1-404-3852683 E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 6 May 2004