Rolf Eckhoff - Curriculum vitae#

Academic degrees

• Master of Science (Chemical engineering), University of Trondheim, 1961
• Master of Philosophy (Dust explosions), University of London, 1971
• Doctor Technicae (Dust explosions), University of Trondheim, 1976
• Doctor of Science (Eng.) (Gas and dust explosions, Powder technol.) Higher doctorate, University of London, 1992

Honours

• Permanently invited guest, WPMPS (powder mech.), Europ. Feder. Chem. Engineering from 1985
• Concurrent professor of North Eastern University, Shenyang, P.R. China, from 1990
• Member of the Committee of Honour of EuropEx, Belgium, from 1991
• Recipient of the W. Cybulski medal (Polish Academy of Science), 1992
• Member of the Norwegian Academy of Technical Sciences, 2008
• Member of Acaemia Europaea, 2011

Career

Eckhoff was appointed at Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Bergen, Norway, in 1962, where he established powder technology (1963), accidental dust explosions (1968), and accidental gas explosions (1976) as new research areas. From 1973 to 1988 he was CMI's chief scientist in powder technology, and dust and gas explosions, and from 1988 to 1996 senior scientific adviser to CMI/CMR/GexCon. He was appointed part-time professor at University of Bergen in Process Safety Technology in 1992 and full-time professor in 1996. At UoB he has been central in the building up of the general study programme process technology, as well as his own special sub programme in process safety technology. In 2008 he became professor emeritus at UoB in Process Safety Technology, but he still teaches regular internal courses and supervises master and doctorate students.

Eckhoff has advised industry and public agencies in many countries on powder technology and explosion protection, and lectured on courses, conferences and seminars in a number of countries in Europe, and in USA, Canada, Israel, Bahrain, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India, China, Australia and Brazil. He has been an expert witness in connection with major explosion disasters in USA. In 2005 he participated, as the only invited expert from outside USA, in the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) public hearing in Washington DC, on how to deal with the increasing number of serious dust explosion accidents in US industries. Eckhoff is a member of the editorial board of "Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries", and of several Norwegian and international working groups on process-safety-related topics related to the Internat. Electrotech. Comm. (IEC) and the European CEN/CENELEC.