Babatunde Ayodeji Ogunnaike (March 26, 1956 – February 20, 2022) was an American chemical engineer of Nigerian descent and the William L. Friend Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware (UD). He was the former dean of UD’s college of engineering. He died on February 20, 2022. He had waged a long battle with cancer.
Early life
Ogunnaike was born on March 26, 1956, in Ijebu Igbo, Ogun State, Nigeria.
Education and career
Ogunnaike attended the University of Lagos for his bachelor’s degree, graduating with First Class Honours in chemical engineering in 1976.
Shortly after completing his undergraduate degree, Ogunnaike submitted lyrics for a competition to create a new national anthem for Nigeria. His entry was combined with those of four others to form the current national anthem of Nigeria in 1978.
He furthered his studies and earned an M.Sc. degree in statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a PhD in chemical engineering also from the same university in 1981.
He commenced academic work as a lecturer at the department of chemical engineering, University of Lagos, in 1982 and became senior lecturer and successively, associate professor of chemical engineering. He continued lecturing at the University of Lagos until 1988.
Ogunnaike was a research engineer with the process control group of the Shell Development Corporation in Houston, Texas from 1981 to 1982. He worked as a researcher for DuPont and was also a consultant to several companies including Gore, PPG Industries, and Corning Inc.
He joined the faculty of the University of Delaware in 2002 and was appointed to the William L. Friend Professorship of Chemical Engineering in 2008. His title became the William L. Friend Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering when the name of the department was changed in January 2012. He led the Ogunnaike Research Group. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the African University of Science and Technology, Abuja.
Ogunnaike acted as interim dean of the college of engineering at the University of Delaware beginning in July 2011, and was named dean of the College of Engineering effective July 1, 2013. He retired as dean on October 1, 2018, but remained on the faculty. He played a key role in creating a new report that would guide the future of chemical engineering, jointly put together by the national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine.
Research
Ogunnaike is the author and editor of several books, including Random phenomena : fundamentals of probability and statistics for engineers (2009) and Process dynamics, modeling and control (1994). His books, papers and book chapters are used to educate engineers in instrumentation, systems and control at many universities. He was associate editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and the American Chemical Society’s Industrial & Engineering Chemistry.
His research focuses on modeling and control of industrial processes; the application of process analytical technology for control of pharmaceutical processes; identification and control of nonlinear systems; the interaction of process design and process operability; applied statistics; biological control systems; and systems biology with application to neuronal responses and cancer.
