Plenary
Speaker
Biographical Sketch
Professor George Stephanopoulos
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), USA
George was born
in Kalamata, Greece, in 1947. He received his Diploma
in Chemical Engineering from National Technical University of Athens in 1970,
and his M.E. from McMaster
University in 1971.
During the period 1971-1974 he worked with Art Westerberg at the University of Florida on his PhD degree. After
graduation from the University of Florida, he joined the University of Minnesota
as Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering.
He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1977 and Professor in 1981. In
September of 1980 he took on a chaired professorship at his Greek alma matta and taught
there until January 1984, when he joined the faculty at MIT; first as the J. R.
Mares and then as the A. D. Little Professor of Chemical Engineering. During the period 2000-02 he took a leave of
absence from MIT and was appointed Chief Technology Officer and Managing
Executive Officer of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC). After his return to MIT he continued as
Managing Director, Member of the Board of MCC until 2005.
George’s research
and teaching interests have covered many aspects of Process Systems
Engineering, such as: process synthesis; process modeling and analysis; process optimization; process operations
modeling, analysis, diagnosis, and control; process operations scheduling and
planning. His systems engineering interests
led him into a variety of other types of systems, addressing research issues
related to the design, analysis, control, optimization of the corresponding
systems: networks of chemical or biochemical reactions; integrated
manufacturing systems within the scope of a national economy or corporate
business; city traffic networks and intercity transportation networks; systems
approaches to the design and manufacturing of products; and process systems
engineering for integrated nanoscale processes (his current focus and love).
George is a
member of the NAE (’99), Foreign Member of Russian Academy of Technological
Sciences (’91), and received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from McMaster
University (’02). He is a Fellow of AIChE and has received the Walker (’03) and Colburn
(’82) awards. On the Centennial of AIChE
he was selected in 2008 as one of the 100
Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era, and earlier the 2003 AIChE Institute Lecture and received the 1993 Computing in Chemical Engineering Award,
from AIChE’s CAST Division. In 2009 he received the Ragazzini Award, American Automatic Control Council (AACC). He has
also received the C. McGraw Award for Research from ASEE (’86) and the 1977
Dreyfus Teacher and Scholar Award. Computers and Chemical Engineering have
selected his papers twice for the Best Paper Award (1987, 1992). He has given honorary lectureships at
University of Buffalo (2010 Eli
Ruckenstein Lecture), Kansas State Univ. (The L.T. Fan Distinguished Lecture Series), Princeton University (Wilhelm Lectures, 2009); ETH-Zurich (Stodola Medal Lecture, 2009); Univ. of Delaware (Gerster Lecture, 2004); Imperial College (Sargent Lecture, 2000); Carnegie Mellon (2000); Purdue Univ. (Kelly Lectures, 1999); Univ. of Oklahoma
(Fair Lecture, 1999); Rutgers Univ. (Merck Distinguished Lecture, 1992); CCNY
(Katz Memoral Lecture, 1989); Univ.of
Newcastle (The ICI Distinguished Lecture,
1988); Univ. of Bologna (Distinguished
Lecturer for the 900th Anniversary, 1988);
Caltech (The Dreyfus Lectures, 1982),
and others.
He has been a
member of several editorial boards, including the following: Process Systems Engineering Series,
Academic Press; AIChE J.; Computers and
Chemical Engineering; Artificial
Intelligence in Engineering; Advances in Chemical Engineering
George has
authored/co-authored 7 books and co-edited 8.
He has co-authored more than 210 papers.
Over the years he
has mentored more than 40 PhD students, with 16 of them in academic positions
around the world, and more than 30 M.S. students.
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