(3he) Systems Engineering Approaches to Renewable Bioproducts Research and Development Projects

Products derived from sustainable renewable sources need to be assessed for their techno-economic feasibility, environmental impact and social impact. As a biochemical systems engineer with experience in manufacturing and testing biotherapeutics, nutraceuticals and functional sustainable materials, my research interest would be to develop analytical methods for regulatory compliance to government policies and international standards of quality, to apply systems engineering approaches to complex manufacturing systems and to assess the sustainability of these biochemical systems. Specifically, I am interested in novel material characterization techniques and chemical analysis methods of proteins as biotherapeutics, bioactive compounds from food and carbon-based functional materials for water treatment and catalyst supports. Most of these interests are applications of lessons learned as a graduate student in chemical engineering, forest biomaterials and systems engineering. Systems engineering approaches can be applied to life science-related projects. These approaches are linear and non-linear programming algorithms for optimization, statistical design-of-experiments approach in biochemical engineering projects, project management tools and techniques for multiple simultaneous research projects, simulation of manufacturing assembly and technical services, large-scale engineering systems analysis, and lean six sigma tools for chemical product and process development. As a post-doctoral scholar, I also wanted to do material and energy balances around these chemical production systems for techno-economic analysis using cost models and life cycle analysis for environmental midpoint impact categories. A good fit for me as a post-doctoral research associate would be in a research university with workforce competencies and mentorship in agriculture, forestry, engineering and biomedical sciences towards sustainable financial investments to support the local chemical industry and international collaborations for mentorship and leadership in engineering.

Research Interests: analytical methods for regulatory compliance to government policies and international standards of quality, systems engineering approaches to complex manufacturing systems and sustainability of biochemical systems