Keynote Talks

Sunday: Conference Reception

Opening Lecture
Gavin Towler Profile Pic
Gavin Towler
Corporate Chief Scientist, Sustainable Technologies
Honeywell
Plenary: Challenges in Design for Sustainability
Gavin Towler is the Corporate Vice President and Chief Scientist, Sustainable Technologies for Honeywell, with broad technical accountability across Honeywell for driving thought leadership in Sustainable Technologies. Gavin has 30 years of experience of process and product design in the chemicals and fuels industries and has 77 US patents. Prior to his current role he served as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Honeywell UOP and of Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies. He is co-author of Chemical Engineering Design, a textbook on process design, and is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University and the National University of Singapore, where he helps teach the senior design classes. Gavin has a B.A. and M.Eng. in chemical engineering from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley. He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers, a Fellow of the AIChE and a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering.

Monday: Design and Energy Transitions

Overview of Design and Energy Transitions
Justin Federici Profile Pic
Justin Federici
Carbon Capture Technologist
ExxonMobil Technology and Research Company
Plenary: Connecting the dots: Push and pull between technology R&D and energy transition modeling
Justin Alexander Federici is currently a carbon capture technology lead at the ExxonMobil Technology and Research Company. Starting with the company in 2009, he has developed process scale up strategies for a variety of business sectors including upstream, downstream, chemicals, and low carbon solutions. Previously, he earned a B. S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University in 2004 and a Ph. D. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware in 2009. His areas of expertise include technology development, process modeling and scale-up, gas/liquid/solid separations, reacting multiphase flow, and targeted experimental methods for validation of phenomenological models. He has also had the pleasure of collaborating with many prestigious universities (UT Austin, University of Regina), national laboratories (NETL) and 3rd party technology developers (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries); collecting and connecting the dots to help the world move through the energy transition.
Dimitri Papageorgiou Profile Pic
Dimitri Papageorgiou
Senior Researcher
ExxonMobil Technology and Research Company
Plenary: Connecting the dots: Push and pull between technology R&D and energy transition modeling
Since joining ExxonMobil in 2012, Dimitri has led numerous research teams investigating energy and power systems modeling, supply chain and logistics applications, and other topics. Among his awards, he received an ExxonMobil R&D Excellence Award in 2022 for “developing a first-of-a-kind Energy System Modeling capability that has been essential in informing ExxonMobil’s internal views and future hypothetical scenarios for the energy transition.” Through his collaborations with major universities including Alberta, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, KTH, MIT, Purdue, UT-Austin, and Toronto, he has pushed the state-of-the-art in modeling and computation. He has held numerous professional service roles in INFORMS as a cluster chair, best paper/thesis award committee member, and industry panelist. He earned a BS in Mathematics from UNC-Chapel Hill, an MS in OR from UT-Austin, and a Ph.D. in OR from Georgia Tech. He is a recipient of a US NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
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Faruque Hasan
Associate Professor
Texas A&M University
Plenary: Designing for the Future: The Role of Process Design in Decarbonization and Energy Transition
Dr. Faruque Hasan received his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology in 2005 and a Ph.D. from National University of Singapore in 2010. After a postdoctoral training at Princeton University, he joined Texas A&M University in 2014, where he is currently an Associate Professor and the Kim McDivitt and Phillip McDivitt Faculty Fellow in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering. He also serves as an Assistant Director of Decarbonization at the Texas A&M Energy Institute. His research interests include the development and application of nonlinear and discrete optimization, deterministic global optimization, and machine learning techniques for integrated molecular and process design, process intensification, design of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), sustainable hydrogen economy, energy storage, and circular economy. Dr. Hasan is the recipient of NSF CAREER award, Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the AIChE Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division, I&EC Research 2019 Class of Influential Researchers, ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award, Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, and Best Paper Awards from Computers & Chemical Engineering (2015) and Journal of Global Optimization (2017).
Electrification and Non-Traditional Sources
Kelly Nicholson Profile Pic
Kelly Nicholson
Development Professional
Linde, PLC
Design Challenges in the Electrification of Traditional HYCO Processes – From Carbon Capture to Reactors
Kelly Nicholson has more than ten years of experience conducting research and leading programs in in hydrogen and syngas technology development. Kelly is currently a Development Professional with Linde, PLC, in the Chemical Technologies R&D division of Linde Engineering Americas and is co-creator of state-of-the-art proprietary software LE3D for reforming and cracking reactor design. Kelly’s current work focuses on bridging the gap between industrial computational models and plant operations with a pragmatic approach to improving the reliability and energy intensity of HyCO processes. Prior to Linde, she received her doctorate in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (2014) with a minor in public policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology where she used high throughput density functional theory methods to identify new materials for high temperature hydrogen capture and to study hydrogen isotope behavior. Kelly holds Bachelors (2009) and Masters (2010) degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Louisville.
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Mariano Martín
Full Professor
Universidad de Salamanca
Towards a sustainable and defossilized chemical and process industry
El Dr. Martín is Full Professor of Chemical engineering at the University of Salamanca and leader of the Sustainable processes and products lab. Graduated with honors in Chemical engineering, received the Outstanding Thesis award in 2008. He joined P&G where he led the last challenge in the laundry business for which he obtained the P&G award for its outstanding contribution to modelling and simulation. He was Fulbright Scholar under Prof. Ignacio E. Grossmann before accepting the challenge of building a process laboratory in the oldest university in Spain. El prof. Martín was included within the 2% Top researchers in chemical engineering in the ranking by Univ. Stanford, he has authored 180 papers in peer reviewed journals (h=38 SCOPUS), 50 book chapters, 2 monophaphic books and 3 textbooks for Elsevier, Springer in CRC Press. He is evaluator of research proposals and editor of journals such as LAAR, PIOS, Frontiers among others.
Low Carbon and Carbon Capture
Jaffer Ghouse Profile Pic
Jaffer Ghouse
Data Scientist
Woodside Energy
Process Design for The Energy Transition: An Industrial Perspective
Jaffer Ghouse, Ph.D., is a Data Scientist working with the Systems Integration and Operations Group in Woodside Energy's New Energy Business. He specializes in design and optimization of advanced energy systems, and process intensification technologies. In his current role, Dr. Ghouse focuses on developing end-to-end systems level optimization-based tools that help evaluate various opportunities in the energy transition space. Before joining Woodside Energy, Dr. Ghouse was the team lead at KeyLogic Systems, which supported the Process Systems Engineering Research at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). During his tenure at NETL, he contributed to the development of open-source optimization-based software tools such as IDAES and DISPATCHES and served as the Principal Investigator for the ARPA-E funded flexible carbon capture project. He also worked on several industrial partnerships focusing on direct air capture. Dr. Ghouse holds a Bachelor's in Technology from Anna University Chennai (2010) in India and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University (2016) in Canada.
Ewerton Emmanuel da Silva Calixto Profile Pic
Ewerton Emmanuel da Silva Calixto
Senior Hydrogen Project Manager
VOLTALIA
Fueling the Future: Unveiling the Sustainability of Green Hydrogen
Graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), master's degree from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and doctorate also from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He has experience in the area of ​​intensification of chemical and biochemical processes (processes integration: mass and energy), process analysis (modeling, simulation and optimization of processes), as well as experience in oil processing (onshore and offshore), development of technological solutions for industry and decarbonization projects using green hydrogen. The most prominent projects were: (1) FEED and detailing of the Abreu & Lima refinery (RNEST), (2) basic projects of the Pre-Salt FPSOs, (3) development of an H2S sequestration simulator in oil wells for CENPES / PETROBRAS, (4) development of software for the synthesis, simulation and optimization of effluent treatment systems and water distribution networks for SANEPAR, (5) as well as the development and testing of software for large companies, such as the Siemens GMO simulator and green hydrogen consulting projects for SENAI CIMATEC. He is currently Senior Hydrogen Project Manager at VOLTALIA and senior member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).
Diane Hildebrandt Profile Pic
Diane Hildebrandt
Professor
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Rutgers University
Decarbonisation through Process Targeting and Recycling
Diane Hildebrandt is a Professor at Rutgers University School of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. Diane Hildebrandt obtained her B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. from the University of the Witwatersrand. She has authored or co-authored over 225 scientific papers, including an invited paper in Science, and has supervised over 120 postgraduate students. She received numerous awards, including the African Union Continental Scientific Award in the category Basic Science, Technology and Innovation in 2009, the Yanzhao Friendship Award of the Hebei Province of China in 2020, and she was invited to give the Danckwerts at the Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering in November 2022. Her research area is designing energy-efficient processes and equipment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from chemical processes. She is particularly interested in how she can apply the results of her research to improving the lives of those who do not have access to energy and clean water.
Process Optimization and Efficiency Improvement
Fengqi You Profile Pic
Fengqi You
Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor
Cornell University
Driving Energy Transition and Decarbonization with Renewable Energy Systems, AI, and Blockchain Technologies
Fengqi You is the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering at Cornell University. He also serves as Chair of Ph.D. Studies in Cornell Systems Engineering, Co-director of the Cornell University AI for Science Institute (CUAISci), Co-lead of Schmidt AI in Science Program at Cornell, and Co-Director of Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture (CIDA). His research focuses on fundamental theory and methods in systems engineering and AI, as well as their applications to smart manufacturing, quantum computing, energy systems, and sustainability. His research and teaching accomplishments were recognized by 20 national/international awards over the past six years from the AIChE, ACS, RSC, American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), American Automatic Control Council (AACC), in addition to multiple best paper awards. He is an elected Fellow of the RSC, Fellow of the AIChE, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
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Salih Emre Demirel
Associate Research Scientist
Dow Chemical Company
Industrial Applications of Optimization-based Process Design and Investment Planning for Sustainability
Emre Demirel is an Associate Research Scientist at the Dow Chemical Company. As part of Machine Learning, Optimization & Statistics group under Dow’s Core Research & Development, he specializes in developing mathematical programming approaches for process synthesis, process intensification and sustainability applications. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2020, following his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Chemical Engineering from Bogazici University, Turkey. He has 13 peer-reviewed journal articles and 5 conference publications. He also authored/co-authored 38 conference presentations.

Tuesday: Design and Sustainability

Overview of Design for Sustainability and Resilience
David Tucker Profile Pic
David Tucker
Hybrid Performance Project Leader
U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory
Plenary: Design for Sustainability and Resilience
His career spans research and scientific successes in industry, academia, and the government sectors. At NETL, Dr. Tucker serves as the Hybrid Performance (Hyper) project leader with research focus in cyber-physical systems, hardware-in-the-loop simulations, real-time dynamic modeling, hybrid system dynamics and controls, solid oxide fuel cell degradation, piezoelectric flow detection, high-temperature piezoelectric valves, and cyber-security using blockchain. During his tenure at NETL, Dr. Tucker developed a cyber-physical system for energy research. At Jacobs Engineering Group, Dr. Tucker served as a lead engineer in piping and materials engineering on a $7.1B refinery expansion project. He taught at the University of West Alabama as a chemistry professor, performing research in the flash pyrolysis of waste biomass in high temperature plasma. As Managing Director for Southern Ventures, Inc., Dr. Tucker took the company public and led corporate direction for zero-emission conversion of waste materials into chemical products.
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Rakesh Agrawal
Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor
Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University
Plenary: Process Systems Engineering for A Sustainable Chemical Engineering
Rakesh Agrawal is the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. His research includes energy systems analysis, shale gas processing, biomass to liquid fuel conversion, synthesis of efficient multicomponent separation processes using distillation and membranes, gas separations and liquefaction, and novel processes for the fabrication of low-cost thin-film solar cells. His honors include the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from the President of the United States of America. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors and the AIChE. He holds 133 U.S. patents and has published 259 technical papers and has given over 280 invited lectures. He formerly worked at Air Products and Chemicals, where he rose to the highest technical position of Air Products Fellow. He received chemical engineering degrees from IIT Kanpur, University of Delaware, and MIT.
Design for a Sustainable Circular Economy
Bhavik Bakshi Profile Pic
Bhavik Bakshi
Professor
Arizona State University
Designing Process Systems for Net-Zero Emissions and Nature- and People-Positive Decisions
Bhavik Bakshi holds the Wrigley Professorship at Arizona State University with appointments in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, School of Sustainability and School of Complex Adaptive Systems. He is also an emeritus professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The Ohio State University. His research is developing systematic methods to ensure that engineering enables an effective transformation toward sustainability. This is resulting in novel solutions that respect nature’s limits, are socially just, and contribute to economic prosperity. Some of his awards are from the Computing, Environmental, and Sustainability divisions of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). His Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree is from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, MS in Chemical Engineering Practice and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a minor in Technology and Environmental Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
Christos Maravelias Profile Pic
Christos Maravelias
Anderson Family Professor in Energy and the Environment
Princeton University
Synthesis of Renewable Energy Systems
Christos Maravelias is the Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and the Anderson Family Professor in Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. His research interests lie in the general area of process and energy systems engineering and optimization. Specifically, he is studying production planning and scheduling, supply chain optimization, and chemical and energy systems synthesis and analysis with emphasis on renewable energy technologies. He has authored a research monograph on Chemical Production Scheduling. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the 2008 David Smith and the 2013 Outstanding Young Researcher awards from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the 2016 Production and Operations Management Society Applied Research Challenge Award.
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Gerardo J. Ruiz-Mercado
Senior Research Chemical Engineer
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Life Cycle and Sustainability Analyses for Designing Safer Circular Economy Routes
Dr. Gerardo J. Ruiz-Mercado is a Senior Research Chemical Engineer in the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Gerardo leads projects on decision support tools, techniques, economics, and planning for the sustainable management of end-of-life materials. Gerardo holds a Ph.D. from the University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez and a B.S. from Universidad del Atlántico - Colombia. Also, Gerardo volunteers his time as an Adjunct Professor at the Universidad del Atlántico and an executive member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). His publications and presentations include over 60 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, a book, and more than 160 talks at technical conferences and meetings. Moreover, he is a peer reviewer for 45 indexed journals and a mentor for Ph.D., MSc, and B.S. students. Gerardo received the EPA Scientific and Technological Achievement Award 2021, 2015, and 2014 and the 2022 Federal Service Excellence Diversity Award.
Design For a Net Zero Carbon Economy
Ana I. Torres Profile Pic
Ana I. Torres
Assistant Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
Decarbonization of Oil Refineries through electrification and low carbon feedstocks
Ana Inés Torres is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on sustainability and process systems engineering as applied to clean and sustainable energy. Torres earned her B.S. in Chemistry in 2003 and a diploma in Chemical Engineering in 2005, both from the Universidad de la República Oriental del Uruguay. In 2013, after two years of industrial experience, she earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. She completed her postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2014. Before joining CMU, Torres served as faculty in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Universidad de la República, Montevideo, in Uruguay. She has been invited to speak at many universities and conferences and was a keynote speaker at the Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering Incorporating the 68th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference in 2018, the "Unprecedented" Webinar Series on chemical innovation to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals in 2021, and the FOCAPO conference in 2023. Torres was also recently highlighted as one of seventeen Women in Chemical Engineering by the Chemical Engineering Research and Design Journal.
Gonzalo Guillen Gosalbez Profile Pic
Gonzalo Guillen Gosalbez
Professor Doctor
Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich
Sustainable Process Systems Engineering for Chemicals within Planetary Boundaries
Dr. Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez completed his M.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from Universidad de Murcia (Spain), and his Ph.D. in Process Systems Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain), working afterward as Fulbright Scholar at Carnegie Mellon University (US). He then joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain) in 2008, before moving to The University of Manchester (UK) in 2014 and to Imperial College London (UK) in 2016. Since February 2019, he works as Professor in Chemical Systems Engineering in the Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering of ETH Zürich (Switzerland). Dr. Guillén-Gosálbez’s research interests focus on the simultaneous optimization of the environmental and economic performance of process industries. He currently sits on the Editorial Boards of the journals Sustainable Production and Consumption and Helvetica, and participates in the steering committee of the NCCR Catalysis Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research and in the EU panel on Safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials. He has received several awards, including the Senior Moulton Medal of the IChemE, the Top Doctoral Student Award of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain, the Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, and the Young Investigator Award of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering.

Wednesday: Design and Emerging Fields

Trends and Advances in Emerging Fields and Enabling Technologies
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Leo Chiang
Sr. R&D Digital Fellow
The Dow Chemical Company
Plenary: Advances and Opportunities of AI and machine learning in Product Design
Leo Chiang is Senior R&D Digital Fellow at Dow Core R&D. He has a broad research interest in emerging AI and Data Science approaches and his grand vision is to lead the industry to achieve AI at scale. Leo is on a mission to improve data acumen for workforce at all levels at Dow; he co-developed data science training program and championed many programs and activities to foster cross functional collaboration. Leo is proactive in working with universities to support data science education in chemical engineering and the broader STEM community. Leo has a B.S. degree from University of Wisconsin at Madison and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in Chemical Engineering. Leo has co-authored 2 books, over 60 externally refereed journal/proceedings papers and has given over 140 conference presentations and university lectures. Leo is a Fellow of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and has served as 2014-2016 Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) director, 2016 CAST 10E programming chair, 2017-2018 spring meeting program chair (MPC), and 2019-2022 Executive Board of the Program Committee (EBPC). Leo was instrumental in setting up the Big Data Analytics Topical Conference (2015 to 2017) and Industry 4.0 Topical Conference (2018-2020) at the spring meeting. He was recognized by the AIChE with the 2016 Herbert Epstein Award for his programming leadership and 2016 Computing Practice Award for his world-class leadership in the development and application of methodologies in analytics for batch and continuous processes known as Big Data. Leo is also active in the broader engineering and control community, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2023 and recognized by American Automatic Control Council with the 2020 Control Engineering Practice Award. Leo currently serves as Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE) trustee.
AI/ML in Product/Process Design
Alexander Dowling Profile Pic
Alexander Dowling
Associate Professor
University of Notre Dame
Recent Advances in AI and ML for Molecular-to-Systems Engineering
Alexander (Alex) Dowling is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA) with a concurrent appointment in Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics. His research group focuses on: (1) molecular-to-systems (multiscale) modeling and optimization; (2) optimal design of experiments and statistical inference; and (3) machine learning for bridging timescales. Prof. Dowling has been recognized with an NSF CAREER award (2019), the Junior Sargent Medal from IChemE (2023), the university-wide Mentoring Award from the Graduate Student Government (2023), and two R&D 100 awards. He holds a B.S.E. from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, all in chemical engineering. Read more at https://dowlinglab.nd.edu.
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Fani Boukouvala
Associate Professor
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Harnessing Diverse Data with Hybrid Process-Informed Machine Learning: From Model Identification to Integrated Material-Process Design
Fani Boukouvala is an Associate Professor in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. She obtained her BS from the National Technical University of Athens, her PhD from Rutgers University NJ, and also worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at Princeton and Texas A&M Universities. Her research program focuses on merging data-analytics, mathematical programming and chemical engineering to optimize complex systems in the areas of carbon capture, power grid operations, and plastics recycling. She has received several awards, including three best paper awards, the NSF CAREER Award, the IChEME Junior Sargent Medal and the AIChE-CAST 2023 Outstanding Young Investigator Award. Dr. Boukouvala’s elective course on data-driven systems engineering, is a flagship course of a new Graduate Certificate for Data-Science for the Chemical Process Industries, that received the Georgia Tech Curriculum Innovation Award. She has served as an Area Chair and Director of the Computing & Systems Technology division of AIChE.
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Jesus Flores-Cerrillo
Director of Digital Technologies
Linde
Industry 4.0 – Applications of AI and ML in Energy Intensive Industries
Jesus Flores has 20 years of experience in the development and implementation of machine learning, advanced process control and advanced analytics solutions in the process industries. Jesus has been with Linde (formerly Praxair) since 2004 where he currently leads the Digital Technologies Group in Linde’s Center of Excellence. The Digital Technologies Group develops and implements novel monitoring, instrumentation, machine learning, IIoT, AI and process control solutions to improve the efficiency and reliability of Linde’s plant operations and IT/OT systems. Jesus’ experience includes machine learning, AI, automation, and advanced process control among others. Jesus leverages his technical expertise, multidisciplinary project management skills and business insights to solve complex problems in collaboration with multiple business units. Jesus holds a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University, and he is author or co-author of more than 40 peer reviewed journal papers. Jesus is also a frequent invited speaker in multiple industrial and academic forums. He and his team actively collaborate with multiple universities and research consortia.
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Kelly Rose
Technical Director for Science-based Ai/Ml Institute (SAMI)
U.S. DOE, National Energy Technology Laboratory
Cloud Computing & AI for Energy & Environmental Innovation
Rose is a senior research scientist with over 20 years of service and experience at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). She is the Technical Director for NETL’s Science-based Ai/Ml Institute (SAMI). Her research focuses on developing novel science-based, data-driven methods and models for addressing energy and environmental challenges, including leading development of NETL’s award-winning Energy Data eXchange® (EDX) R&D data curation and collaboration system. As technical director of SAMI, she has helped to establish a cross-disciplinary research institute focused on accelerating explainable and trustworthy, science-based artificial intelligence for applied energy applications. Through leadership of her geo-data science research group, she has developed and lead development of competitive, collaborative R&D teams who deliver innovative solutions using advanced computing, data science resources. She is coauthor on more than 100 public datasets, models, tools, and publications. Rose has a strong commitment to mentoring and STEM outreach as well.
Pharmaceutical and Bio-Systems Design
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Marianthi Ierapetritou
Bob and Jane Gore Centennial Chair Professor
University of Delaware
Towards the Development of Digital Twin for Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Marianthi Ierapetritou is the Bob and Jane Gore Centennial Chair Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of Delaware. Prior to that she has been a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Rutgers University. During the last year at Rutgers University, she led the efforts of the university advancing the careers in STEM for women at Rutgers as an Associate Vice President of the University. Dr. Ierapetritou’s research focuses on the following areas: 1) process operations; (2) design and synthesis of flexible production systems with emphasis on pharmaceutical manufacturing; 3) energy and sustainability process modeling and operations; and 4) modeling of biopharmaceutical production. Her research is supported by several federal (FDA, NIH, NSF, ONR, NASA, DOE) and industrial (BMS, J&J, GSK, PSE, Bosch, Eli Lilly) grants. Dr. Ierapetritou obtained her BS from The National Technical University in Athens, Greece, her PhD from Imperial College (London, UK) in 1995 and subsequently completed her post-doctoral research at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ).
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Ophelia Venturelli
Associate Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Decoding interaction networks driving the human gut microbiome for precision therapeutics
Dr. Ophelia Venturelli is an Associate Professor in Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical & Biological Engineering and Bacteriology at the UW-Madison. The Venturelli lab uses systems and synthetic biology to understand and engineer microbiomes to address grand challenges facing society in human health, agriculture and bioprocessing. Dr. Venturelli completed a Life Sciences Research Foundation Fellowship at UC Berkeley in the laboratory of Dr. Adam P. Arkin. She received her PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics in 2013 from Caltech with Richard M. Murray. Dr. Venturelli has received numerous awards for her multi-disciplinary research including the Shaw Scientist Award (2017), Army Research Office Young Investigator Award (2017), Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Innovation Award (2019), ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award (2023) and OVCRGE Early Career Innovator Award (2023).

Thursday: Design Education and Future of Design

Design Education
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Daniel R. Lewin
Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering, Technion
Plenary: The current status of process and product design – what and how to teach – and a vision for the future.
Prof. Daniel R. Lewin holds the Churchill Family Chair at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. He is the co-author of the book, Product and Process Design Principles, published by John Wiley and Sons, whose fourth edition appeared in 2017. From 2019, the enhanced eBook of the 4th Edition includes approximately 90 videos clips and associated quiz questions, in a sense making it the first flipped textbook on process design. He has twice received Muriel and David Jacknow Awards, as well as the Weissman Award for his innovative teaching methods. In 2009, he was the recipient of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering's David Himmelblau Prize for Innovations in Computer-based Chemical Engineering Education. In 2015, he was the recipient of the Yannai Prize for teaching excellence at the Technion.
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Warren D Seider
Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
University of Pennsylvania
Plenary: The current status of process and product design - what and how to teach - and a vision for the future
Warren D. Seider is Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. For many years, he has contributed to the fields of process analysis, simulation, design, and control. In process design, he coauthored FLOWTRAN Simulation - An Introduction, CACHE (with J.D. Seader and A.C. Pauls), Introduction to Chemical Engineering and Computer Calculations, Prentice-Hall (with A. L. Myers), and Product and Process Design Principles: Synthesis, Analysis, and Evaluation, 4th Ed., VitalSource E-book (with J. D. Seader, D. R. Lewin, S. Widagdo, R. Gani, and K. M. Ng). Professor Seider was the co-recipient (with Professor J. D. Seader) of the AIChE Warren K. Lewis Award in 2004, and the recipient of the AIChE Computing in Chemical Engineering Award in 1992. In 2023, he received the AIChE Founders Award, and in 2008, he was recognized by the AIChE Centennial Committee as one of Thirty Authors of Groundbreaking Chemical Engineering Books.
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Jeff Siirola
Professor of Engineering Practice
Purdue University
Plenary: Forces Shaping the Future of Design and Design Education
Jeff Siirola retired in 2011 as a Technology Fellow after 39 years at Eastman Chemical in Kingsport Tennessee. Failing retirement, he alternated semesters as a Distinguished Service Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems at Carnegie Mellon University and Professor of Engineering Practice at Purdue University teaching chemical process design, process synthesis, and industrial chemical technology. Starting in 2017 he has been physically both semesters at Purdue while still contributing remotely to the senior design experiences at CMU. Siirola received a BS from the University of Utah in 1967 and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970 both in chemical engineering. His areas of interest include chemical process synthesis, process design theory and methodology, technology assessment, sustainable development, process industry electrification, and chemical engineering education. Siirola is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a past President of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Young Researcher Spotlight
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Artur M. Schweidtmann
Assistant Professor
Process Intelligence Research, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Artificial intelligence for process development
Artur M. Schweidtmann is a tenure-track assistant professor for chemical engineering at Delft University of Technology and director of the Process Intelligence Research lab (www.pi-research.org). His research focuses on the combination of artificial intelligence and chemical engineering. He received his Master of Science from RWTH Aachen University in 2017 and defended his Ph.D. from RWTH in 2021, both in Chemical Engineering. During his studies, he spent the academic year 2013/2014 at Carnegie Mellon University as a visiting student via the DAAD ISAP program. He performed his Master thesis at the University of Cambridge.
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Burcu Beykal
Assistant Professor
University of Connecticut
From Then to Now and Beyond: Exploring How Machine Learning Shapes Process Design Problems
Burcu Beykal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and a resident faculty in the Center for Clean Energy Engineering at University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on data-centric process systems engineering, hybrid modeling, and machine learning of energy-critical systems, spanning chemical, environmental, and biological domains. Burcu holds a B.S. degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Koc University, an M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
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Calvin Tsay
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Computing
Imperial College London
Integrating design and demand-response operation for electrified hydrogen production
Dr Calvin Tsay is Assistant Professor (UK Lecturer) in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London. Prior to his appointment as lecturer, he was an EPSRC David Clarke Fellow and Imperial College Research Fellow. His research focuses on computational methods for optimisation and control, with applications in machine learning and process systems engineering. Calvin received his PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, receiving the 2022 W. David Smith, Jr. Graduate Publication Award from the CAST Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He previously received his BS/BA from Rice University (Houston, TX).
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Maria Papathasiou
Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer)
Sargent Centre Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
Towards 3-fold sustainability in biopharmaceutical process development and product distribution
Maria is an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London. She holds a PhD degree in Process Systems Engineering from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London and an MSc from the same department. She completed her undergraduate studies at the School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens and she conducted her Diploma Thesis in Food Process Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. Maria’s research focuses on the development of Process Systems Engineering tools (modelling, optimisation and control) with application to Life Science and Energy Systems. Her research outputs to date have been acknowledged through over 40 peer reviewed and conference publications, over 40 oral presentations at international conferences and four international awards, including IChemE’s Junior Sargent Medal (2023). She serves as AIChE’s Social Media Ambassador for the CAST Division and as Secretary for IChemE’s Computer Aided Process Engineering (CAPE) group.
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Qi Zhang
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota
Design for Flexibility: A Two-Stage Robust Optimization Approach
Qi Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and worked at BASF prior to joining the University of Minnesota. His research in the broad area of process systems engineering focuses on mixed-integer optimization, decision making under uncertainty, and data analytics, with applications in sustainable process systems, smart manufacturing, supply chain management, and metabolic engineering. He is a recipient of the AIChE CAST W. David Smith Jr. Graduate Publication Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship.
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Ashlee N. Ford Versypt
Associate Professor
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Design Education and Future of Design
Dr. Ford Versypt earned a B.S. from the University of Oklahoma and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, all in Chemical Engineering. She did her postdoc at MIT. She started her academic career at Oklahoma State University before joining the University at Buffalo as a tenured associate professor in January 2021. Dr. Ford Versypt leads the Systems Biomedicine and Pharmaceutics Laboratory. She has received a number of awards for her research, teaching, and service including the NSF CAREER Award; ASEE Chemical Engineering Division's Fahien, Martin, and Corcoran Awards; and AIChE CAST Division Himmelblau Award for Innovations in Computer-Based Chemical Engineering Education. Her research program is funded by the NSF, NIH R35 MIRA, and others.
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Victor M. Zavala
Baldovin-Dapra Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison
From Process to Systems Design: A Perspective on the Future of Design Education
Victor M. Zavala is the Baldovin-DaPra Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a senior computational mathematician in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He holds a B.Sc. degree from Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City) and a Ph.D. degree from Carnegie Mellon University, both in chemical engineering. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Process Control, Mathematical Programming Computation, and Computers & Chemical engineering. He is a recipient of NSF and DOE Early Career awards and of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). His research interests include statistics, control, and optimization and applications to energy and environmental systems.
Design Education and Future of Design
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Thomas A. Adams II
Professor
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Exergy analysis in design research and education
Prof. Adams is a Professor in the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at NTNU, previously having been a professor at McMaster University from 2010-2022. He holds dual bachelor's degrees in computer science and chemical engineering from Michigan State University, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and did his postdoc at MIT. His expertise is in chemical process systems engineering, particularly with regard to sustainable systems, process design, modelling and simulation, and technology valuation. He is the author of the textbooks Learn Aspen Plus in 24 Hours (2017, 2022) and Exergy Tables (2023), and the project leader developing the new ISO 14076 standard on eco-technoeconomic analysis.
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Brian Gettelfinger
Director - R&D
Personal Health Care - Procter & Gamble
Accelerating Discovery in Consumer Product Design
Over his 15 year career at Procter & Gamble, Brian Gettelfinger has used computational & simulation in a variety of formulation, process, and consumer design roles. He specialized in integrating digital solutions into human work process to unlock bottlenecks in innovation work, and he is particularly passionate about using first-principles methods and Bayesian inference to deliver superior products and processes. In his current role, he is responsible for Work Process Transformation and Digital Activation in Personal Health Care R&D. Brian received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2009. He currently lives in West Chester, OH with his wife and three children.
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Ray Adomaitis
Professor
University of Maryland, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Institute for Systems Research
Chemical Process Design Education Challenges Posed by the Electrification and Decarbonization of the CPI
Ray Adomaitis received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. After a postdoc at Princeton University, he joined the University of Maryland where he is currently a Professor in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department with a joint appointment at the Institute for Systems Research. Ray's research interests focus on simulation and design of thin-film manufacturing processes with applications in microelectronics processing and spacecraft systems. His teaching activities include undergraduate- and graduate-level classes in solar energy and both systems and chemical engineering process capstone design courses, the last of which he has taught continuously for two decades. He served as the engineering PI for Team Maryland’s entry to the 2017 U.S. Solar Decathlon, is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and has served as the NSF CBET Process Systems, Reaction Engineering, and Molecular Thermodynamics Program Director.
Closing Plenary
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Ignacio Grossmann
R.R. Dean University Professor of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Plenary: Highlights & Perspectives: System design for energy transitions; Educational approaches to pursue new design challenges.
Ignacio E. Grossmann is the R. R. Dean University Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and former department head at Carnegie Mellon University. He obtained his B.S. degree at the Universidad Iberoamericana, MexicoCity, in 1974, and his M.S. and Ph.D. at Imperial College in 1975 and 1977, respectively. He is a member and former director of the Center for Advanced Process Decision-making. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and former associate editor of AIChE Journal. He has received the several major AIChE awards. In 2015 he was the first recipient of the Sargent Medal by the IChemE. He has honorary doctorates from Abo Akademi in Finland, University of Maribor in Slovenia, Technical University of Dortmund in Germany, University of Cantabria in Spain, Russian Kazan National Research Technological University, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina, Universidad de Alicante in Spain, and RWTH Aachen, Germany.
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Gintaras V Reklaitis
Gedge Distingushed Professor
Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University
Plenary: Highlights & Perspectives: Design of sustainable products, processes and supply chains; Design challenges arising in emerging fields.
Rex Reklaitis has expertise in the application of information and computing technologies to process and product design, operations and supply chain management. Current research includes PSE applications in the development, manufacture and delivery of pharmaceuticals. He received B S ChE from Illinois Institute of Technology and PhD from Stanford University. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, fellow of AAAS and AIChE, and past Editor-in-Chief of Computers & Chemical Engineering. Among his recognitions are the AIChE John M Prausnitz Institute Lecturer and Warren K Lewis Awards and the EFChE Long Term Achievements in CAPE Award. He has served on the Board of Directors of AIChE, the Council for Chemical Research and the CACHE Corporation and several journal editorial boards. He has published over 350 papers and book chapters and nine books. Recently he chaired a National Academies study on Innovations in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing on the Horizon.

Other Confirmed Speakers

Speaker Name Institution
Styliani Avraamidou University of Wisconsin
Emre Gencer Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Carl Laird Carnegie Mellon University
Zoltan K Nagy Purdue University
Sameer Parvathikar RTI International
Pablo Rolandi Amgen
Xiaonan Wang Tsinghua University