Professor Raffaella Ocone

IAS Annual Theme: AI:Facts, Fictions, Futures

Heriot Watt University

Raffaella Ocone graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Università di Napoli, Italy and obtained her MA and PhD from Princeton University, USA. She holds the Chair of Chemical Engineering at Heriot-Watt University since 1999. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institution of Chemical Engineers, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

In 2007 she was appointed Cavaliere of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity by the President of the Italian Republic. In The Queen’s 2019 New Year Honours she was appointed Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to engineering. Raffaella was named as one of the top 100 Most Influential Women in the Engineering Sector in 2019 in the list produced by board appointments firm Inclusive Boards in partnership with the Financial Times. In 2021 she was elected Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers for distinctive professional achievements and accomplishments in chemical engineering.

Raffaella was the first “Caroline Herschel Visiting Professor” in Engineering at RUHR Universität, Bochum, Germany (July-November 2017) in recognition of her work in ethics in engineering. Raffaella’s main area of research is in the field of modelling multiphase reactive systems with emphasis to the development of responsible technologies in the energy arena. She has taken the lead in the teaching of engineering ethics. Currently she is the EPSRC Established Career Fellow in Particle Technology.