Dr. Jaroslaw W. Drelich received his BS degree in chemistry and his MS degree in chemical technology from the Technical University of Gdansk (TUG), Poland, in 1983. After earning his MS degree, he worked at the TUG for 6 years as a research associate doing applied research on oily-soil remediation, deoiling of aqueous waste, oil spill clean-up, and designing extraction units for analysis of oil concentration in water. At that time, he also worked as a consultant and an engineer to a few private engineering firms located in Gdansk (Poland), mostly designing wastewater treatment plants and units and analyzing quality of discharged waters from industrial operations. Along with a few other faculty and engineering staff at the TUG, he contributed to invention, development and production of novel coalescence filters designed for cleaning small wastewater stream from dispersed oil. Jaroslaw earned his Ph.D. degree in metallurgical engineering from the University of Utah in 1993. He then worked at the University of Utah for four years as postdoctoral fellow and research assistant professor. During that time his work concentrated on fundamental and advanced concepts of surface chemistry that he applied to oil sands processing, mineral processing, and materials recycling. He came to Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech) in 1997 and currently is a professor of materials science and engineering. His main research interests are in applied surface chemistry and interfacial engineering for ore dressing and materials processing, nanotechnology, materials recycling, characterization of materials’ surfaces, modification and testing of biomaterials, and formulation of antimicrobial materials. Aside from teaching several courses on characterization and processing of materials at Michigan Tech, Dr. Drelich has edited 5 books, published about 150 technical papers, holds 9 patents and has more than 50 conference presentations, including several keynote addresses, to his credit. He has been appointed in 2011 as Adjunct Professor to the Department of Chemical and Material Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. Dr. Drelich serves on the External Advisory Board for the Journal of Adhesion Science and Technology since 1999 and edited several special issues of this journal containing invited papers on atomic force microscopy, adhesion force measurements, and wetting phenomena. Dr. Drelich also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for the International Journal of Advanced Materials Manufacturing & Characterization and Journal of Nanomaterials & Molecular Nanotechnology. Currently, he is organizing a new journal Surface Innovations and will serve as the editor to this journal. Dr. Drelich is also an advocate of interdisciplinary capstone senior design projects, and promotes interdisciplinary projects between engineering and business to encourage the students to think about both technical and business viability and interconnections. He is the active member of The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society (TMS), Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME), and American Chemical Society (ACS), and has served on a number of different committees; currently, he serves as Chair for the TMS Energy Committee. Dr. Drelich is the founder of Micro Techno Solutions, a start-up company with a mission to apply, promote and commercialize micro- and nano-technologies invented at or in collaboration with Michigan Tech. Micro Techno Solutions leads in an effort to explore applications for and commercialization of recently developed antimicrobial natural minerals. Natural minerals loaded with nanoparticles of elemental copper are explored for development and manufacturing of safe products for personal use and industrial applications with efficient disinfection and microbial control.

The research interests of Dr. Jaroslaw W. Drelich include: Adhesion of fine particles Characterization of materials’ surfaces Biodegradable implant materials Wetting of solids and liquids Colloidal properties of particles Recycling of materials Minerals and oil sands processing