David Henthorn Named John and Anne Swearingen Endowed Professor in Chemical Engineering

Professor of Chemical Engineering and Computer Science & Software Engineering David Henthorn, PhD, is studying how to protect critical infrastructure from cyberattacks as the new John and Anne Swearingen Endowed Professor in Chemical Engineering. Henthorn began a two-year appointment on July 1.

The endowed professorship provides funding to faculty to excel in their specialized areas, lead conversations with other educators in their fields, and create opportunities for students and colleagues. Henthorn is the second Rose-Hulman faculty member to receive the endowed professorship, succeeding Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering Sharon Dutrow, PhD.

"In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure — chemical plants, the national power grid, and food distribution networks," Henthorn explained. "Not only are these high value targets for malicious actors, but because of their complexity and long lifetimes, they are frequently running outdated and insecure software."

Recent work in Rose-Hulman's Unit Operations lab has focused on creating virtual versions of these systems, which Henthorn describes as "chemical plants in the cloud." He hopes to use the expertise developed at Rose-Hulman to study how the rise of artificial intelligence will affect these systems.

"We are seeing a push to augment industrial systems with autonomous capabilities with agentic AI. This opens a whole new attack surface for malicious actors to exploit," said Henthorn.

The virtual systems developed by Henthorn will be used to mimic how artificial intelligence would interact with these industrial systems, stress testing them against possible attacks.

Henthorn noted that a major tech company was hit with a cyberattack earlier this summer when individuals abused a customer service bot, tricking it into giving them the accounts of other users. Safeguarding against such attacks will be critical to the future success of the workforce.

"Students in chemical engineering at Rose-Hulman go through extensive training on how to design and operate chemical plants safely," Henthorn said. "As AI tools become increasingly important to productivity, however, we see the need to also train them in responsible and safe use of AI."

Henthorn earned both a bachelor's degree and a doctoral degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University, completing his thesis on the supercomputer simulations of pharmaceutical molecules. He joined Rose-Hulman's Department of Chemical Engineering in 2012, teaching courses in plant design and applied data science. In 2024, Henthorn also joined the Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering to teach courses in cybersecurity. His teaching and research interests center on the intersection of computing and engineering.

The John and Anne Swearingen Endowed Professorship in Chemical Engineering was created by 1981 chemical engineering alumnus John Swearingen and his wife, Anne, to recognize faculty who are committed to excellence and innovation in their fields and educational pursuits. John retired in 2020 as executive vice president of logistics and storage of Marathon Petroleum Corporation after a rewarding 39-year career.