The Executive Board of TU/e has today, 16 December 2010, appointed dr.ir. Maaike Kroon as professor of Separation Technology in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. She is the youngest female professor in the Netherlands.

Maaike Kroon, who has already won many prizes in her short career, will start her own research group at TU/e working on new, sustainable separation processes for the chemical industry. Her research will focus on advanced, energy-efficient separation methods, for example using new hybrid materials and ionic liquids. These new separation methods will be used in the production of fine chemicals, in new desalination processes, in the production of diesel fuel from synthetic gas, in the storage of hydrogen and in the use of biomass.
 
Kroon started her studies in chemical engineering in 1999 at Delft University of Technology. She gained her engineer’s diploma cum laude in 2004, and in 2005 completed the honors track program at Delft, again cum laude. She has won numerous prizes for her study results and her graduation project, including the CIVI prize from the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities for the best first year in chemistry and chemical engineering in the Netherlands in 2000, the prize from the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Delft University of Technology for the most innovative graduation project (2005), the Unilever Research Prize (2005), the prize for the best new graduate at Delft University of Technology in the period 2004-2005, and the prize from the Batavian Society for Experimental Philosophy as the best new graduate at Delft University of Technology in the period 2004-2006.

Maaike Kroon gained her PhD cum laude in 2006 at Delft University of Technology (supervisors: prof.dr. G.J. Witkamp & prof.dr.ir. C.J. Peters) for her thesis ‘Combined reactions and separations using ionic liquids and carbon dioxide’. She received two distinctions for her doctoral research: the DSM Science & Technology Award for the best thesis in the period 2006-2007, and the KNCV prize for the best thesis in the period 2006-2008.

After gaining her PhD, Maaike Kroon’s work included periods as a postdoc at the MATGAS research center in Barcelona (Spain, 2007) and as visiting assistant professor at Stanford University (USA, 2008-2010). In 2010 she became assistant professor in the Process & Energy department of the Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering at Delft University of Technology.