Ralph Landau was a chemical engineer and entrepreneur active in the chemical and petrochemical industries. He is considered one of the top fifty foundational chemical engineers of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the 75 most distinguished contributors to chemical enterprise. He has published extensively on chemical engineering and holds a significant number of patents. He was born on May 19, 1916 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Ralph Landau won a number of significant awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (2003), the first Othmer Gold Medal (1997), the National Medal of Technology from the United States Government,[12] first awarded by President Ronald Reagan in 1985 "for his technical, leadership and entrepreneurial roles in the development of commercially successful petrochemical processes", and the Perkin Medal (1981).