James J Walsh, ME, CEng, MIChemE, MIEI, MIMechE

Jim Walsh came as a student to the Engineering school at UCD in 1945 after secondary education with the Jesuits at Mungret College in Limerick. He graduated with first place and First Class Honours in the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in 1949. Following three years at the shell refinery in Stanlow, he returned to his alma mater in 1952 as an assistant in the Mech and Elec Department - the year in which the first students in Chemical Engineering enrolled. On the establishment in 1957 of the Department of Chemical Engineering and the appointment of John O'Donnell to the new chair, Jim Walsh transferred to the new department and was appointed College Lecturer and in 1966 Associate Professor. Jim was a major force in the teaching and research activities of the department through its period of growth during the 1970s and 1980s and his work was recognised by his appointment as Head of Department on the retirement of John O'Donnell in 1988. In this role, he had the vital job of managing the transfer of the department to its new building in Belfield, involving the supervision of a major re- equipment of laboratories, the design and commissioning of a new internal computer network and a redirection of the department's research effort, made possible by the new facilities.

Professor Walsh's scholarly interests were multi-faceted. In his early years, he worked on the design of wind tunnels and the drying and thermal degradation of biological materials. He later moved into the area of atmospheric pollution and became the Irish national delegate on the EC committee on Physico-Chemical Behaviour of Atmospheric Pollutants. His strong mathematical leanings contributed enormously over the years to the Faculty of Engineering Committee on Courses in Mathematical Physics and Mathematics. He was a consultant to the OECD on the teaching of Applied Mathematics in Irish Engineering schools and a member of the Royal Irish Academy National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. His over-riding love, however, was the development of computing and computational techniques, both from a theoretical and an applied viewpoint. Thus, he served as a long-term member of the Governing Body Computer Policy Committee. He also did valuable research work in computational fluid mechanics.

In his position as Head of Department, Professor Walsh was responsible for the development of strong research and development links with a number of Irish chemical firms on both sides of the border. One of his achievements was the establishment of a new student exchange programme for chemical engineering undergraduates with the Grande Ecole at St. Etienne in France - the first such programme in the Engineering School at UCD.

Jim was a strongly committed contributor to his professional institutions. He was a Fellow of both the Institution of Chemical Engineers and the Institute of Engineers in Ireland, and held various offices in each. Also active in the Royal Dublin Society, he was a member of its Council and of its Science Committee.