John Michael Prausnitz is an American chemical engineer, specializing in molecular thermodynamics of phase transitions. John was born on January 7, 1928 in Berlin. Dr. Prausnitz is responsible for many of the activity coefficient models used for the design of major chemical plants. Prausnitz completed his PhD in 1955 with a dissertation “Liquid-Phase Turbulent Mixing Properties” at Princeton University. Prausnitz currently is professor emeriti of the graduate school of the University of California, Berkeley, department of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The purpose of his research is to obtain, interpret and correlate thermodynamic properties of a variety of mixtures as required for process and product design in the chemical and related industries, including biotechnology. He received the National Award Of Science in 2003.