AIChE Awards Its 2025 Langer Prize to Mark Blenner of the University of Delaware

Grant from chemical engineering society will support researcher's work to create cost-effective and value-generating solutions for microplastics recovery, degradation, and upcycling.

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will present its 2025 Langer Prize for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Excellence to Mark A. Blenner, Thomas & Kipp Gutshall Career Development Associate Professor - University of Delaware. The fellowship - which is endowed by the AIChE Foundation - is named for biomedical pioneer Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Langer Prize awards an unrestricted grant of up to $100,000 to enable creative researchers and engineering entrepreneurs in their early careers to pursue potentially game-changing innovations with transformative societal impact.

Dr. Blenner, whose research addresses the global problem of plastic waste, will receive the Langer Prize and present an associated lecture on November 3 during the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting, which takes place November 2-6 in Boston, Massachusetts.

In discussing the objectives of his research, Blenner explained that with ownership and responsibility of the plastics problem largely diluted, solutions cannot wait for regulation to catch up; therefore, innovations must deliver significant value to early adopters and have the potential to scale to larger markets. Biotechnology, including microbes and enzymes, has the potential to efficiently process mixed, uncleaned plastic waste and be deployed in decentralized systems, making them attractive for plastic upcycling. Synthetic biology can enhance these solutions for industrial applications.

Blenner's blue-sky idea was selected from a global candidate pool with proposals reviewed by the Langer Selection Committee, chaired by Samir Mitragotri.

Recently, Raj and Kamla Gupta made a generous investment through the UJALA Foundation, in the Langer Prize Endowment. "The Langer Fellow is addressing global challenges and perfectly aligns with our philanthropic focus on education and healthcare."

Blenner is a chemical engineering alumnus of Manhattan College. He earned his PhD in chemical engineering from Columbia University and performed postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School.

As a Langer Prize recipient, Dr. Blenner joins a network of Langer Fellows, including Ashish Kulkarni (2024), Albert Keung (2023), Tae Seok Moon (2022), Aditya Kunjapur (2021), María Eugenia Inda (2020), and César de la Fuente (2019). He will have access to, and support from, some of the industry's foremost innovators and entrepreneurs.

Information about the Langer Prize and the application process is available at www.aiche.org/langerprizes. The deadline for 2026 fellowship applications is February 17, 2026.

To learn about how your gift can help the Langer Prize endowment campaign for the Langer Prize, contact AIChE Foudation Executive Director Natalie Krauser at [email protected].