Awards & Scholarships

Reinhardt Schuhmann, Jr. is the David Ross Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Purdue University, a position he has held since 1964.

Dr. Schuhmann earned his B.S. degree in metallurgical engineering at the Missouri School of Mines in 1933 and received his M.S. degree from the Montana School of Mines in 1935. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology granted him the Sc.D. degree in 1938.

Dr. Schuhmann's first teaching and research activities were in mineral dressing, and are reflected in publications on flotation chemistry, flotation kinetics, and size distribution of comminution products as well as process developments for Bolivian tin ores and South African uranium ores. While teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until 1954, he pioneered the unit process approach, now familiar to several generations of students through his textbook, "Metallurgical Engineering". He conducted many researches on the thermodynamics of metallurgical processes, with particular attention to copper smelting. Most recently, he collaborated with Dr. Paul Queneau in the invention of the Q-S oxygen smelting process for nonferrous metal concentrates.

Dr. Schuhmann, a member of AIME since 1932, is a Charter Fellow of The Metallurgical Society of AIME and recipient of the 1970 AIME James Douglas Gold Medal. Other honors include Extractive Metallurgy Division of The Metallurgical Society of AIME Best Paper Award (with Dr. W. A. Krivsky in 1959) and Extractive Metallurgy Division Lecturer in 1965.