IDAES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Engineer With KeyLogic Systems
Andrew Lee is a Chemical Engineer with KeyLogic Systems supporting the National Energy Technology Laboratory's Process Systems Engineering Research Team. He has a background in first-principles modeling of complex gas-solids systems, including fluidized bed reactors and rotary driers, as well as general thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. He also has an interest in developing new tools to assist with the model development workflow.
Andrew has been part of NETL's process systems engineering team for over 10 years, working as a modeler and software developer. Currently, he leads the team developing and maintaining the core IDAES code base and model libraries, as well as leading the model development sub-task for the Process Optimization and Modeling for Minerals Sustainability (PrOMMiS) project. Past activities at NETL include developing rigorous models for bubbling fluidized bed reactors as part of the Carbon Capture Simulation Initialize (CCSI) and assisting with development of the WaterTAP modeling platform. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Melbourne, Australia, working on the development of a novel solvent-based carbon capture process (UNO process).
Andrew holds a PhD and BE in Chemical Engineering from James Cook University, Australia.
Job Titles:
- NETL Support Contractor
- Senior Research Engineer With KeyLogic Systems
Daison Manuel Yancy Caballero (NETL) is a Senior Research Engineer with KeyLogic Systems, supporting the NETL's Process Systems Engineering Research Team (PSERT). His primary areas of expertise include mathematical modeling, data analytics, machine learning, thermodynamics, transport phenomena, chemical reaction engineering, conceptua l design and synthesis, uncertainty quantification, process design and optimization. At NETL, Daison's research focuses on modeling, optimization, and conceptual design of advanced energy systems, carbon capture, and direct air capture technologies. Daison leads the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) subtask within PSERT projects, which aims to advance direct air capture (DAC) technologies through further discovery and optimization of new and novel materials and processes capable of capturing the accumulated CO 2 in the atmosphere, improving the energy efficiency of carbon removal operations. Daison obtained his B.S. from the Industrial University of Santander in Colombia, his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Campinas in Brazil, all in Chemical Engineering. After receiving his Ph.D., Daison gained further experience as a postdoctoral research associate, first at the Brazilian Biorenewables National Laboratory, and later in the Prof. Snurr Research Group at Northwestern University.
Dan Gunter leads Data Management and Software Release subtask which provide the software engineering expertise to manage the development and release of the IDAES PSE Framework and to develop the infrastructure so that the models and computational tools developed under IDAES can effectively manage the large amounts of knowledge required for the synthesis, design, optimization and scale up of innovative new energy processes. Dan also is the lead of the NERSC subtask which supports the scale up of Pyomo's coarse-grained parallelism to run on high-performance computing (HPC) resources, in particular the DOE NERSC supercomputer.
Job Titles:
- Chief Research Officer
- Chief Research Officer, NETL / U.S. Department of Energy
As chief research officer, David C. Miller, Ph.D., directs the organization's research activities and frames S&T strategic plans based on broad assessment and evaluation of current and emerging energy challenges. Previously, Miller served as an NETL senior fellow and provided technical and strategic leadership across the Strategic Systems Analysis and Engineering directorate. Miller initiated and led the highly collaborative, multi-institutional Institute for the Design of Advanced Energy Systems, which is focused on computational approaches to enable the design and optimization of complex integrated energy and industrial systems, accelerating their development and deployment to support rapid decarbonization of the energy and industrial sectors. Miller also served as the technical director of the Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative, which pioneered new ways to maximize learning during pilot-scale testing to reduce technical risk during scale-up. Miller is a recipient of the Arthur S. Flemming Award for Exceptional Federal Service, Applied Science and Engineering. He earned his doctorate in chemical engineering from The Ohio State University.
Job Titles:
- GE Plastics Material Engineering Professor
- Plastics Material Engineering Professor
Debangsu Bhattacharyya is the GE Plastics Material Engineering Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at West Virginia University (WVU). Before pursuing his PhD, he spent more than ten years in the operation, design, and simulat ion of a petroleum refinery. His research interests are in the area of advanced modeling, simulation, optimization, condition monitoring, uncertainty quantification, fault diagnosis, sensor placement, advanced control, AI/ML, and advanced manufacturing. Professor Bhattacharyya received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Clarkson University, New York in 2008. He has authored/co-authored more than 125 peer-reviewed research papers, 5 book chapters, 300 oral presentations and 70 poster presentations. He is a co-author of the popular chemical engineering design book, "Analysis, Synthesis, and Design of Chemical Processes". He is a member of the prestigious 2015 R&D 100 (widely recognized as the "Oscars of Invention") winning team in the Software/Services category for "EYESIM v2.3 Immersive Real-Time Virtual Reality Software for Improving Energy Plant Operations and Safety". In 2016 and 2020, his team again won the 2016 R&D 100 award for the "CCSI Toolset" and 2020 R&D 100 for the "IDAES PSE Computational Platform" both under the Software/Services category.
Job Titles:
- Supervisory Research Engineer, NETL
Anthony Burgard (NETL) joined the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in 2016 and currently manages the Process Systems Engineering Research team. He is also the NETL Principal Investigator for the Institute for the Design of Advanced Energy Systems (IDAES) which is developing and applying a next-generation platform for process systems engineering that is built specifically to enable rigorous large-scale mathematical optimization. His current research focuses on developing the process equipment models, flowsheets, and solution methodologies required for simulating and optimizing fossil-based power plants during both steady-state and dynamic operation. He was previously Associate Director of Computational Technologies at Genomatica, Inc., where his team routinely applied optimization-based approaches to guide the engineering of microbes for commodity chemical production via fermentation. Dr. Burgard earned his BS and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Penn State University. He has coauthored over 30 papers and is listed as an inventor on over 100 patents.
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator, Sandia National Labs
- Principal R & D Member of Technical Staff
John Siirola (SNL) is a Principal R&D Member of Technical Staff in the Discrete Math and Optimization Department within the Center for Computing Research at Sandia National Laboratories. His main areas of expertise are systems design, operations research, optimization modeling, and optimization algorithms. John's research focuses on the intersection of computational tools with systems design and analysis; in particular, developing approaches for modeling highly structured systems, optimization algorithms that can exploit the expressed structure, and the application of these techniques to national security problems. Much of John's research is disseminated through open-source software projects. He is the Sandia PI for the Institute for the Design of Advanced Energy Systems (process modeling, design, and optimization) and serves on the Pyomo Management Committee (optimization modeling). Previously he led the Acro project (optimization algorithms) and contributed to the Water Security Toolkit (modeling and analysis tools for drinking water distribution systems), Dakota (optimization and uncertainty quantification), Utilib, PyUtilib, gcovr, and cxxtest. John has a B.S. from Purdue University (2000) and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University (2005), both in Chemical Engineering. He is a senior member of the AIChE, member of INFORMS, and member of the COIN-OR Foundation. John currently serves on the COIN-OR Technical Leadership Council and co-chaired the 2014 Foundations of Computer Aided Process Design (FOCAPD) conference.
Job Titles:
- Stakeholder Advisory Board Coordinator
John H. Shinn holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering (UC Berkeley 1979) and brings over 44 years of experience including 32 years with Chevron and 10+ years as a consultant to the Department of Energy and the global energy industry on the effective integration of industry, government and academic technology development efforts. Of particular relevance to his IDAES involvement (Coordinator, Stakeholder Advisory Board) are his leadership of computational modeling programs while at Chevron, and his roles as organizer and leader of multiple industry-national laboratory-academia consortia for Chevron, and subsequent work with the World Bank, NETL, PNNL, LBNL and others guiding effective partnerships that bring together Industrial expertise and the advanced capabilities being developed in academia and national laboratories. His USDOE and national laboratory involvements include leading the Industry Advisory Board for the Carbon Capture Simulation programs from their inception in 2010 to present, serving on the Advisory Board of PNNLs internal Chemical Transformations Initiative, and serving peer reviewer roles for LBNL and NETL carbon capture and computation technology programs. He has led the IDAES Stakeholder Engagement effort from its beginning and is expanding his partnership facilitation efforts into related programs in strategic minerals processing.
Keith Beattie is the Lead of the Sustainable Software Engineering Group in the Scientific Data Division at Lawrence Berkeley Nation Laboratory. With over 20 years as a Computer Systems Engineer at LBL and 5 years in industry as a Software and Release Engineer he brings deep experience in leading teams and applying effective software engineering practices to academic and research contexts. His interests lie at the intersection of scientific research and software engineering. How software is developed and used in a scientific context, who develops it, and how the research, software and people can all mutually achieve their respective scientific mission, engineering impact and personal career goals.
Lorenz T. (Larry) Biegler (CMU) is the Covestro University Professor of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests lie in computer aided process engineering (CAPE) and include flowsheet optimization, optimization of systems of differential and algebraic equations, reactor network synthesis, nonlinear process control and real-time optimization. Contributions in these areas include analysis and development of nonlinear programming algorithms, optimization software design and application to real-world chemical processes and energy systems.
Dr. Biegler is an author on over 500 archival publications and two textbooks, has edited 11 technical books and given numerous invited presentations at national and international conferences. His awards include the Lewis Award, Walker Award and Computers in Chemical Engineering Award, given by AIChE; the Lectureship Award, Curtis McGraw Research Award and CACHE Computing Award, given by ASEE; the INFORMS Computing Prize, and an honorary doctorate in engineering sciences from the Technical University of Berlin. He is a Fellow of AIChE, IFAC and SIAM, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Nick Sahinidis is Butler Family Chair and Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Sahinidis previously taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1991-2007) and Carnegie Mellon University (2007-2020). He has pioneered algorithms and developed widely used software for optimization and machine learning. He received the INFORMS Computing Society Prize in 2004, the Beale Orchard-Hays Prize from the Mathematical Programming Society in 2006, the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award in 2010, the Constantin Carathéodory Prize in 2015, and the National Award and Gold Medal from the Hellenic Operational Research Society in 2016. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of INFORMS, a fellow of AIChE, a fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association, and the Editor-in-Chief of Optimization and Engineering.