The Benjamin Y. H. Liu AwardAmerican Association for Aerosol Research

Benjamin Y. H. Liu was born in Shanghai, China in 1934. He grew up in war-time China on the mainland, went to college in Taiwan, received his B.S.M.E. degree from the University of Nebraska in 1956, and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1960.

Dr. Liu began his academic career at the University of Minnesota as an Assistant Professor. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1987. He is a co-founder of the AAAR and of the society's journal, Aerosol Science and Technology, and helped establish the International Aerosol Research Assembly. He received the Fuchs Memorial Award in 1994 and retired as Regents' Professor from the University of Minnesota in 2002, where he also served as the director of the Particle Technology Laboratory from 1973 to 1997.

Following his retirement from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Liu became the CEO and President of MSP Corporation, a company he co-founded with Prof. V. A. Marple.

Prof. Liu’s contributions to aerosol science include

• theory on aerosol sampling and transport;

• aerosol charging and precipitation;

• inertial impaction;

• filtration;

• atmospheric aerosol research; and

• contaminant particle deposition on wafers.

He and his students have pioneered the development of many instruments and experimental techniques including

• the vibrating orifice generator and

• the electrostatic classifier

that have provided accurate size standards needed by the aerosol community to perform modern aerosol experiments with high accuracy and precision.

The Benjamin Y. H. Liu Award“recognizes outstanding contributions to aerosol

instrumentation and experimental techniques that have significantly advanced the science and

technology of aerosols”.

This award honors Benjamin Y. H. Liu for his leadership in the aerosol community and his own seminal contributions to aerosol science through instrumentation and experimental research.

2005 Recipient of the Benjamin Y. H. Liu Award

Josef Gebhart

Retired from Gesellschaft für Strahlen und Umweltforschung (GSF) and the Institute of Biophysics of the University of Frankfurt/Main

“J. Gebhart had an unrivaled career in the development of optical instrumentation for aerosol measurements and with his colleagues the development of an experimental protocol for the use of aerosols in delineating deposition in the respiratory tract.”

“As a founding member of the GAeF, he accepted the interesting, but difficult and laborious job to report and to write about aerosol history.”