About the Award
The Foundations of Computer Aided Chemical Engineering 2024 Conference is pleased to announce the Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation. The goal of the award is to recognize an outstanding contribution to the field by a PhD Candidate arising from PhD research.
Award recipients must have successfully published and defended their PhD between January 1, 2019 and the submission deadline.
The dissertation must be within the scope of the FOCAPD 2024 conference (chemical process and product design).
Award recipients will receive a certificate, a speaking slot at the FOCAPD conference, and free conference registration.
Winner: Yuhe Tian
After a difficult deliberation requiring multiple rounds, the awards committee is pleased to announce Dr. Yuhe Tian as the 2024 Recipient of the FOCAPD Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation for her thesis work at Texas A&M. Yuhe is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at West Virginia University. Her research focus on systems approaches for modular process intensification, sustainable energy systems, and explicit model predictive control. She is currently an NSF EPSCoR Research Fellow. She also serves as Young Professionals Academic Liaison for AIChE CAST Division.
Yuhe will give her Award Lecture at 4:00pm on Tuesday July 16. She and her research team will also be presenting their more recent research work in the Monday and Wednesday poster sessions.
Honorable Mention: Vyom Thakker
The committee wanted also to recognize Vyom Thakker for his own outstanding dissertation work at The Ohio State University on multi-scale design of chemical process networks, cradle-to-cradle life-cycles and product value-chains to establish a Sustainable Circular Economy. As part of his dissertation, he has developed multiple frameworks that ultimately help users identify ‘optimal’ roadmaps for achieving a “Net-zero Circular Economy” through investments in eco-innovations that are robust to climate-change and expected to favorably evolve in readiness for adoption. Vyom is now a Senior Research Specialist in the Machine Learning, Operations and Statistics (MiLOS) group with Core R&D at The Dow Chemical Company.
He will give an award lecture at 3:00pm on Wednesday July 17.