Professor Charles A. Eckert is a leader in research linking fundamental chemistry to chemical engineering to devise opportunities for sustainable technology. He and his group work with molecular thermodynamics, phase equilibria, statistical mechanics, chemical kinetics and catalysis, and polymer science, much focused now on the use of tunable solvents, such as supercritical fluids, nearcritical fluids, and gas-expanded liquids for applications in such diverse areas as separations, reactions, energy, environmental control, and advanced materials.

At Georgia Tech Dr. Eckert is the J. Erskine Love, Jr., Institute Professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Director of the Center for Specialty Separations at Georgia Tech. He holds also a joint appointment in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Previously, he was a faculty member and Department Head at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Major awards to Eckert include three from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers: the Alan P. Colburn Award of for his applications of molecular thermodynamics to chemical kinetics, the William H. Walker Award for his leadership in supercritical fluids, and the Clarence Gerhold Award for Separations. The American Chemical Society selected him for the Ipatieff Award for his studies in high pressure and catalysis and the E. V. Murphree Award for his work in solution chemistry and separations He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1983.

In addition Eckert has won a number of awards for both teaching and engineering leadership. Georgia Tech chose him for their Distinguished Professor Award in 1997, and the Regents of the State of Georgia selected him for their inaugural statewide Research in Undergraduate Education Award in 2000,  In 2004 he and Liotta were honored jointly by the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for the their team's ongoing research in using tunable solvents for sustainable technology.