Adjunct Professor James Brazdil of the Cullen College of Engineering’s William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has received the 2026 Southwest Catalysis Society (SWCS) Award for Excellence in Applied Catalysis. Brazdil’s win follows that of 2025 Excellence in Applied Catalysis award winner Abraham E. Dukler Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Jeffrey Rimer, also of the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
“The heart and soul of heterogeneous catalysis science have always been the alchemy behind finding the right combination of inorganic materials that would catalyze a targeted chemical transformation,” said Brazdil at his presentation, “Perspectives on Heterogeneous Catalyst Design Strategies: Past, Present and Future” at the 2026 SWCS Spring Symposium on May 1st, 2026, at the University of Houston.
Brazdil has been an active member of the North American Catalysis Society (NACS), of which SWCS is one chapter, over the full course of his 45-year professional career. In addition to finding opportunities to meet many fellow SWCS and NACS members in this time, he has also served in the governance of the Pittsburgh-Cleveland Catalysis Society.
“I was, of course, extremely honored to be selected for this prestigious award. But mostly, I was surprised because I have been retired from industrial research in the catalysis field for five years. It was quite humbling to know that my professional colleagues still value the research work I did and deemed it worthy of this special recognition,” he said. “I greatly appreciate that this award is one more way that I remain active in my chosen professional field even after retirement.
“My aspiration had always been to work in a technical field where I could contribute to its industrial applications,” Brazdil added. “After studying chemistry, the field of catalysis offered the perfect technical platform to do both good fundamental science and to have the opportunity to work on industrially important chemical applications, since catalysis is the enabling technology for virtually all chemical manufacturing processes.”
Brazdil is also a member and fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and has held numerous leadership positions in the organization, including secretary, treasurer and chairman of the Petroleum Division (now the Energy and Fuels Division), and secretary, treasurer and chairman of the Cleveland Section; for his many technical accomplishments, he received the Distinguished Researcher Award of the Energy and Fuels Division of the American Chemical Society in 2020.