Known as the Chem Kid in high school, Edward Muller made good on that nickname with a career dedicated to developing innovative products like biodegradable bioplastics and surgical mesh that safely reabsorbs into the body. His daughters, Lara Estep and Gwyneth Muller, recall his great appetite for knowledge and the pleasure he took in working on a professional challenge. He credited his free education at The Cooper Union as the root of his success. So, in spring 2025, his daughters established The Edward ChE’59 and Jane Muller Chemical Engineering Scholarship. “The tuition-free aspect of [Cooper] was really everything, having that and then being able to get this incredible, top-rate education to study something he loved. It really allowed him to see his future in different ways.”

A native of a Scottish hamlet called Whistlefield, Muller emigrated to the United States as a teenager, and quickly adapted to his new home in Yonkers and the American school system. “Cooper kind of opened a lot of the world to him,” Gwyneth says. “He talked a lot about New York City as the campus, though he also talked quite a bit about the school’s buildings too. Going from Whistlefield to Yonkers to New York was a big change in landscape, and that excitement was a big part of his experience at Cooper.”

He graduated in 1959 and later earned an M.B.A. at New York University. It was a powerful combination of skills in a time of exceptional growth in the field of applied chemistry. From 1961 to 1985, he worked for Halcon SD Group, a leader in the petrochemical field, eventually serving as the company’s chief executive officer. He moved on to a bioscience company, Metabolix, where he was Chairman of the Board from 1993–2007. While there, he also served on the Board of Directors of Tepha, a medical-device company licensed by Metabolix. Lara, who is director of Corporate Strategy Chamber for the container corporation Ocean Network Express, recalls from that period going to a museum with her father, who stopped to study a weaving. Later he explained he was looking at textile construction for a new product he and his colleagues were working on. The product, it turned out, would eventually be known as GalaFLEX, a surgical mesh used to support organs during surgery developed at Tepha. The mesh disintegrates and is safely absorbed by the body so that additional surgery to remove it is no longer necessary. 

Edward’s wife Jane, a native New Yorker, had taught dance and physical education for years before raising her children. She devoted enormous effort to support her children’s love of dance and horseback riding. She and Edward regularly brought the family from their home in Westport, Connecticut, to Manhattan so that Gwyneth could attend the School of American Ballet. “When you're on that track, it's not just the once-a-week class. So, we were there as a family frequently.” Gwyneth went on to dance with the New York City Ballet for 17 years before earning an M.F.A. and an M.B.A. at Yale.

Beyond career and family, the Mullers loved to travel, and Jane studied cooking with passion: she studied at culinary institutes and left her daughters a sizable archive of recipes and techniques gleaned from her years of study. Lara says, “We like to say it was her own way of practicing chemistry in the kitchen!”

The Muller Scholarship, which will first be awarded in Fall 2025, will support a student in chemical engineering. Gwyneth, who is now a performing arts consultant and producer based in Toronto, says, “It was the wish of both of my parents to make a gift that could support another student pursuing a similar path.”