Inducted
2004
Degrees
- Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, West Virginia University, 1977
Vice President, Corporate Plant Operations, Cargill, Inc.
Murali Muralidhara was born in Bangalore, the “Garden City” (and “Silicon Valley”) of India. He obtained his PhD in chemical engineering from West Virginia University in 1977. Currently, he is vice president of corporate plant operations/process technology at Cargill Inc., a major food processor headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with more than 100,000 employees worldwide. At Cargill, he specializes in separations technology research and is actively involved in the development of innovative separations technology, applications of membrane technologies, membrane fouling research, separation/purification of natural projects, and water-related processes. Prior to joining Cargill, he worked at Battelle Memorial Institute (1981-90) as a research leader. He was responsible for leading Battelle’s research in the area of combined fields separation.
Muralidhara is a co-inventor of 25 U.S. patents. He won the illustrious Hausner Award in 1996. In October 2003 he won the TEKNE Award, given for the category of technology leadership in the state of Minnesota.
Muralidhara has edited two books on advances in solid/liquid separation. He is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Oil Chemists Society, North American Membrane Society and the Filtration Society. He also served on the board of the Separations Technology Journal and the International Drying Technology Journal, and he serves on the technical advisory board for SEPRAGEN.
Recently he was appointed as adjunct professor of chemical engineering at the University Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Muralidhara wife, Ponnamma, also has a WVU PhD in agricultural biochemistry (awarded 1978). They have a son, Shilesh, who is currently working toward his master’s degree at the London School of Economics, and a daughter, Shubha Harris, who works for Senator Mark Dayton and her husband, Chuck Harris, who has his own business. Muralidhara hobbies include jogging, reading poetry and scotch tasting.