Brian G. Higgins received his B.Sc and M.Sc degrees (chemical engineering) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and in 1980 his Ph.D in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Since 1983 Prof. Higgins has been a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at the University of California, Davis. He was chair of the department from 1988-1996 and through his efforts and leadership broaden the scope of the department to include biochemical engineering and material science and engineering.

In June 2008 Prof. Higgins retired from UC Davis and now is Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering. Professor Higgins’ principal area of research is the fluid mechanics and stability of thin film coating processes and he is active in using computational tools such as Mathematica and webMathematica in his research and teaching endeavors.

Professor Higgins also consults with many US coating companies on thin film coating technologies. In 2004 Professor Higgins received the AICHE Tallmadge Award for outstanding contributions to coating science and technology. His former Ph.D students are employed at US coating companies and universities. From 2006-2010 he was President of the International Society of Coating Science and Technology, and currently is an ISCST director.