CAST Communications - Winter 2007

2006 SECOND VICE-CHAIR: Francis Doyle III

Francis J. Doyle III was appointed to the Suzanne and Duncan Mellichamp Endowed Chair in Process Control at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and as a Full Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, in 2002. He received his B.S.E. from Princeton (1985), C.P.G.S. from Cambridge (1986), and Ph.D. from Caltech (1991), all in Chemical Engineering. After graduate school, he was a Visiting Scientist at DuPont in the Strategic Process Technology Group (1991-1992), and held appointments at Purdue University (1992-1997); the University of Delaware (1997-2002); and the Universität Stuttgart (2001-2002).

His research interests are in the areas of systems biology and nonlinear process control, with applications ranging from gene regulatory networks to complex particulate process systems. He is the recipient of several research awards including: National Science Foundation National Young Investigator (1992); Office of Naval Research Young Investigator (1996); Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship (2001-2002); and AIChE CAST Division Computing in Chemical Engineering Award (2005). His contributions to engineering education have been recognized as well, including: Potter Engineering Teaching Award (1995); ASEE Section Outstanding Teacher Award (1996); Tau Beta Pi Teaching Award (1996); CACHE Academic Trustee (1998-present); and ASEE Ray Fahien Award (2000). He is the author of 2 books, and over 120 journal articles.

2007-2009 DIRECTOR: Donald Bartusiak

Don Bartusiak is Lead Specialist for Process Control Applications at ExxonMobil Chemical Company. He has 18 years of experience with ExxonMobil in technical and supervisory positions in the U.S. and Europe covering regulatory control, linear and nonlinear MPC, real-time optimization, and online artificial intelligence technologies for businesses ranging from olefins to polymers. He was Lecturer and Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering at Rice University from 2000 to 2003. From 1977 to 1984, he worked for Bethlehem Steel Corporation doing process development research.

He has a B.S. degree from the University of Pennsylvania and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Lehigh University. He is co-author of 16 technical articles, and co-inventor on 3 U.S. patents and multiple international patents. He has served on the Process Control programming committee of the Ethylene Producers Conference (an AIChE topical) for 10 years, and has been the chairman for the last 3 years. He has served on the industrial advisory boards of several industry/university process control consortia, on PhD committees, and as reviewer for three refereed journals. He held multiple offices in the AIChE Lehigh Valley Section, culminating in Section Chairman in 1982.

2007-2009 DIRECTOR: Kenneth Muske

Kenneth Muske is the Robert F. Moritz Sr. Chair of Systems Engineering, director of the Systems Engineering Computational Laboratory, and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Villanova University. He received his B.S.ChE and M.S. in chemical engineering from Northwestern University in 1981. He then worked as a staff engineer in process automation at the Phillips Petroleum Company Research Center and as a senior engineer in process control for Setpoint, Inc. He began his doctoral studies at The University of Texas at Austin in 1990 and, after receiving his PhD in chemical engineering in 1994, joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as a technical staff member where he was involved in the design of advanced control and automation projects for laboratory and DOE facilities. He joined the chemical engineering faculty at Villanova University in 1997 where his research interests are in the areas of system modeling, control, and optimization. He is currently responsible for the interdisciplinary systems engineering programs in the College of Engineering at Villanova University. He is also a registered Professional Engineer.

Ken has been active in the CAST Division serving as the 2006 CAST Area 10b Programming Coordinator, AIChE Society Review Chair for the 2006 American Control Conference, two terms as the AIChE Alternate Director on the American Automatic Control Council Board of Directors and will be the next AIChE Director on this board, and as an Operating Committee Member for the 2000, 2003, and 2007 American Control Conferences. He has also served on over twenty AIChE, IEEE, and IFAC conference organizing, programming, and technical committees in addition to acting as a session organizer and/or co-chair for over thirty sessions at AIChE, IEEE, and IFAC conferences.

Richard Braatz is Millennium Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he is an affiliate Professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Science and Engineering, and Bioengineering. Before starting at U of Illinois he received M.S. & Ph.D. degrees from Caltech and spent a year at DuPont. He has been highly active in CAST Division activities, having served as an AIChE CAST Director and a programming coordinator as well as organizing and/or co-chairing over 25 sessions at AIChE and related conferences.

Dr. Braatz has consulted and/or collaborated with more than 10 companies including Merck, IBM, and UTC Fuel Cells, and is a co-author of 100+ journal papers and 3 books, including the textbook Fault Detection and Diagnosis in Industrial Systems. His interests span computing and systems technology including applied mathematics and process design, control, and operations. As WebCAST chair he will form a committee representing the various subareas of the CAST Division to select speakers that bridge the interests of academia and industry.