(3cw) Circular Economy in Chemical and Process Systems Engineering

Circular Economy (CE); an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design, is currently promoted by the EU, several national governments and businesses around the world. This concept has been highly developed by practitioners, the business community and policymakers, while a scientific basis is clearly needed to effectively navigate the transition towards CE.

CE can contribute to all dimensions of sustainable development: environmental, economic and social, making it an emerging research field in Chemical and Process Systems Engineering. My background and research plan place me in an excellent position in becoming a leader in CE systems engineering.

Research Goal: Accelerate the transition towards a CE.

Research Plan: Establish a research lab focusing on expanding the scope of Chemical and Process Systems Engineering by developing tools for the understanding, analysis, and optimization of the interconnected CE Supply Chains. Focus groups will consider the transition to renewable energy, CE supply chains, developments on large-scale mixed-integer optimization, multi-agent modeling & optimization, and resiliency in CE supply chains.

Ultimate Research Career Goal: Leadership in modeling & optimization of CE Systems and Supply Chains

Funding opportunities: CE goals are in line with UN sustainability goals, and as CE is currently promoted by many nations and businesses worldwide, funding opportunities for CE related research are on the rise (e.g. NSF: CBET, Environmental Convergence Opportunities-CBET, Environmental Sustainability-CBET, Critical Aspects of Sustainability-CBET, DOE: The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), USDA: AFRI Sustainable Agricultural Systems). Industrial funding will also be sought, as many industries are interested and support the concept of CE.

Research experience: During my Ph.D. studies I focused on the development of algorithms for the solution of multi-level optimization problems with applications to hierarchical Chemical Engineering processes, including control, scheduling, supply chain, and robust optimization. As part of my Post-Doctorate, I had the opportunity to collaborate in interdisciplinary projects with academic and industrial groups internationally (e.g. Tsinghua University, RWTH Aachen University, University of Texas at Austin, Shell Oil Company, Process Systems Enterprise), where I extended my expertise in process modeling, optimization under uncertainty, model predictive control, energy systems engineering, food-energy-water nexus, and most recently Circular Economy. Through my research and collaborative efforts, I have built a strong scientific presence that has been acknowledged through 12 peer-reviewed publications, 20 conference publications and 54 presentations at state, national and international conferences.

Proposal writing experience: I have gained extensive experience in proposal writing, as I was instrumental in the development of conceptual ideas, research objectives and methodologies, and responsible for the structure, organization, writing and/or submission of 5 US-NSF proposals (1 pending and 2 funded), 4 US-DOE proposals (2 funded), and 7 other proposals for university internal or international grants (2 pending and 1 funded).

Teaching Interests

My experiences have equipped me with a valuable collection of teaching techniques and philosophies that I am eager to further expand and use to improve the university education experience for all students, primarily focusing on students with learning difficulties.

I have a broad set of teaching interests and given enough time for preparation I am more than willing to teach Chemical Engineering courses that extend beyond my core expertise of Process Systems Engineering, as I am looking to grow and develop both my teaching skills and my knowledge. I am also very keen on developing elective courses that cover concepts beyond the core of Chemical Engineering but can teach valuable skills to the students, such as “Process Optimization”, “Energy Systems Engineering” and “Circular Economy Systems Engineering”.

Teaching experience: I have acquired significant teaching experience; designing the syllabus and course schedule, preparing teaching and evaluation material, giving lectures, tutorials, assisting with projects, coordinating a group of teaching assistants, grading exams and projects, and giving office hours for 6 different courses (Advanced Process Optimization, Reactor Design and Control, Energy Systems Engineering I & II, The Global Energy Future, Multi-parametric Optimization and Control), both at Imperial College London and Texas A&M University. Three of the courses I taught were offered both to on-campus and online students, giving me a valuable experience on the preparation of e-learning teaching material, and the different needs of on-campus and online students.

Mentoring experience: I have substantially developed my supervising skills as I have mentored 4 undergraduate students, 3 MSc and 1 MEng student, and 6 Ph.D. students of different engineering backgrounds.

Selected Publications:

1. Avraamidou, S.; Baratsas, S.; Tian, Y.; Pistikopoulos, E. N. Circular Economy - a challenge and an opportunity for Process Systems Engineering. Computers & Chemical Engineering2020, 133, 106629.
2. Nie, Y.; Avraamidou, S.; Xiao, X.; Pistikopoulos, E. N.; Li, J.; Zeng, Y.; Song, F.; Yu, J.; Zhu, M. A Food-Energy-Water Nexus approach for land use optimization. Science of the Total Environment2019, 659, 7-19.
3. Avraamidou, S.; Pistikopoulos, E. N. A Multi-Parametric optimization approach for bilevel mixed-integer linear and quadratic programming problems. Computers & Chemical Engineering2019, 125, 98-113.
4. Avraamidou, S.; Pistikopoulos, E. N. Multi-parametric global optimization approach for tri-level mixed-integer linear optimization problems. Journal of Global Optimization2019, 74 (3), 443-465.
5. Avraamidou, S; Pistikopoulos, E. N. Multi-level Optimization and Multi-Parametric Programming; Wiley-VCH; to appear in 2021.