Smart Manufacturing

Masoud Soroush is the George B. Francis Chair Professor of Engineering at Drexel University and directs the Future Layered nAnomaterials Knowledge and Engineering (FLAKE) Consortium, collaborating with over 30 researchers from Drexel, the University of Pennsylvania, and Purdue. He has held positions as a Visiting Scientist at DuPont and a Visiting Professor at Princeton. An Elected Fellow of AIChE and Senior Member of IEEE, Soroush has received numerous awards, including the AIChE 2023 Excellence in Process Development Research Award. He holds a BS from Abadan Institute of Technology and MS/PhD degrees from the University of Michigan, with research focusing on advanced manufacturing and nanomaterials. Michael Baldea is an associate professor and the Frank A. Liddell, Jr. Centennial Fellow in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, and a core faculty member in the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas, United States. He obtained his diploma and M.Sc. in chemical engineering from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the University of Texas, he held industrial research positions with Praxair Technology Center in Tonawanda, New York, United States, and GE Global Research in Niskayuna, New York, United States. He has received several research and service awards, including the Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the Computing and Systems Technology Division of AIChE, the NSF CAREER award, the Moncrief Grand Challenges Award, the ACS Doctoral New Investigator Award, the Model-Based Innovation Prize from Process Systems Enterprise, and the Best Referee Award from the Journal of Process Control. His research interests include the dynamics, optimization, and control of process and energy systems. Dr. Baldea serves on the advisory boards of several commercial and non-profit entities, and as a member of the editorial boards of several leading technical journals, including Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the Journal of Process Control, and Chemical Engineering Research and Design. He has co-authored one book, three book chapters, and over 100 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles. Thomas F. Edgar is the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Chair in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. For the past 40 years, Dr. Edgar has concentrated his academic work in process modeling, control, and optimization. He has published over 500 articles and book chapters, as well as two leading textbooks focusing on separations, chemical reactors, coal combustion and gasification, and semiconductor manufacturing. Dr. Edgar has received numerous awards from major professional organizations, including the AIChE Lewis Award and the AACC Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.