Professor Ziad El Rassi earned Ph.D. at Claude-Bernard University in Lyon, France, in 1978. A visiting Assistant Professorship followed at Ecole Centrale de Lyon (Engineering School), France (1978-1980). He then joined the Chemical Engineering Department at Yale University, New Haven, CT, as a Research Scientist (1980-1988). In 1988, he accepted a professorship position at the Department of Chemistry at Oklahoma State University (OSU), Stillwater, Oklahoma. He rose through the ranks to become Full professor in 1998. In 2013, he got promoted to Regents Professor, which is considered the most prestigious rank that may be attained by faculty at Oklahoma State University.
El Rassi’s current research in separation science is focused on furthering the development of modern liquid phase separation techniques such as high performance liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrochromatography by (i) introducing novel separation schemes and principles of high resolving power for biological substances and natural products (ii) investigating the underlying physico-chemical phenomena, (iii) improving the methodology of the three separation techniques, (iv) developing column-based separation platforms for proteomics and (iv) introducing novel applications of general use in the life sciences.
During El Rassi’s tenure at OSU, he has directed the research of 26 Ph.D. students, 11 M.S. students, 10undergraduates, and 10 Postdoctoral fellows. The research has resulted in 220 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, 250 presentations including 170 invited lectures at various locations around the world. Also, edited three books on Carbohydrate Analysis in 1995, 2002, and 2021.
Prof. El Rassi is a member of the permanent scientific committees of The Asia Pacific International Symposium on Microscale Separations, The International Symposium on Electro- and Liquid Phase-separation Techniques (ITP), and The Latin-American Symposium on Biotechnology,
Biomedical, Biopharmaceutical and Industrial Applications of
Capillary Electrophoresis and Microchip Technology.
Besides serving on the editorial boards of several international journals, Prof. El Rassi was Editor (1993-2004), Editor-In-Chief (2005-2019) and Honorary Editor-In-Chief (2019-presnt) of the journal ELECTROPHORESIS. He also served as the Chairman of three international symposia, the 17th and 19th and 23rd International Symposium on Electro- and Liquid Phase-separation Techniques in 2010 (ITP 2010), 2012 (ITP 2012) and 2016 (ITP 2016).
Prof. El Rassi has received the following research awards: Sigma Xi Lectureship Award in 2004, Regents Distinguished Research Award in 2005, Oklahoma Scientist of the Year Award in 2006 and Oklahoma Chemist of the Year Award in 2007.