In this series, ChEnected introduces readers to the recipients of AIChE’s 2025 Institute and Board of Directors’ Awards. These high honorees are nominated by the chemical engineering community and voted upon by the members of AIChE’s Awards Committee.
AIChE’s Industrial Progress Award is given for early-career accomplishments and contributions to industrial practice by an individual working in industries served by chemical engineers. This year, the Industrial Progress Award is being presented to David J. Couling, Principal Investigator at Corteva Agriscience. He is being recognized “for consistently coupling exceptional technical innovation with exemplary collaboration to develop sustainable processes crucial to the successful launch of new agricultural products with global impact.”
About David Couling
Upon earning his PhD in chemical engineering from MIT, Couling joined Dow Chemical in 2012 as part of the company’s Core R&D Process Sciences group. In 2018 he transferred to Dow AgroSciences, which became Corteva Agriscience in 2019, maintaining his role as a process development engineer. In both roles, he has repeatedly been recognized by the company for his technological innovations.
Couling's leadership in process development has produced innovative solutions in a wide range of technology areas. From devising dramatically faster filtration methods, to increasing yields and quality while lowering costs and waste, to tailoring a more cost-effective and sustainable crystallization process, his work has consistently increased efficiency and profits.
Couling has contributed significantly to Corteva's product quality and impurity management, having led at least five lab-scale sample campaigns to support product registrations. Moreover, he has continually demonstrated the ability to produce novel solutions for impurity management. In one example, Couling led a cross-functional team for several months to address the issue of an undesired crystal form of a product that was creating poor material handling properties and threatened quality and productivity. The team was able to produce a modified crystallization procedure that produced the desired crystal form and in-specification material >95% of the time. This effort was ultimately rewarded as one of three finalists in Corteva’s internal Worldwide Research and Development Awards for Enabling Success.
Through contributions like these, Couling's work has significantly contributed to the successful commercial launch of various products, including Inatreq™ active, Rinskor™ active, Adavelt™ active, Pyraxalt™ active, and others, which represent a combined net present value exceeding $1 billion.
Couling's current work focuses on the intersection of advanced manufacturing technologies, process safety, and predictive modeling. He continues to innovate by assimilating experimental data with custom algorithms to improve Corteva’s ability to launch new products with confidence. This combination of predictive, science-based models and laboratory results has already realized a step-change regarding this team’s ability to scale up new chemistries.
Commitment to continued learning
Couling has demonstrated commitment to continued learning and development, and leads Corteva’s internal Reaction Engineering Community of Practice where employees share best practices. He has also mentored at least five new employees throughout his career and has co-advised an academic summer collaborator for a separations project. In addition, he has also served on the planning committee for the AIChE Process Development Symposium for the last seven years, chairing sessions, inviting speakers, and delivering one presentation. Furthermore, he serves as an industry panelist at the University of Notre Dame for both its graduate research symposium and its senior design capstone presentations.
This fall, ChEnected is presenting a series that profiles all the 2025 Institute and Board of Directors’ Award recipients. Visit ChEnected regularly to meet the honorees.
