(4al) Model-Based Design of Pharmaceutical Crystallization Processes

During my PhD at Purdue, I have been working on the model-based design of crystallization processes to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients as well as understanding the kinetics and mechanisms causing different behaviors of the crystals in various crystallization or dissolution systems such as batch crystallizers, continuous oscillatory baffled crystallizers, or hot melt extrusion.

As a PhD candidate at Purdue University, I work with Professor Zoltan Nagy on modeling and optimization of pharmaceutical crystallization processes. We developed a methodological workflow to design crystallization processes in the light of Industry 4.0 including the system identification, smart experimentation for data acquisition and preliminary detection of key process parameters, modeling and digital twin development followed by process optimization and experimental validation of the resulting model. We hope to provide good solutions for industrial problems in meeting the key process criteria by developing this framework while providing user interfaces for in-silico design of experiments and process optimization.

Furthermore, I am hoping to expand my knowledge and skillset by using the latest developments in machine learning to solve the problems of not only pharmaceutical crystallization processes but also other processes in industry to provide practical solutions. I haven been working with convolutional neural networks to do image analysis to extract real time crystallization kinetics information, and I want to do more by using the latest techniques. For example, this type of study can be done on any type of data such as NMR data for reactions to detect the course of reaction. I am hoping to utilize my population balance modeling and optimization skills with this new skillset I have been gaining to do research promoting model-based process design more.

Teaching Interests:

Over my PhD years, I have had the chance to be a teaching assistant twice for two undergrad courses: 1) senior process control and 2) sophomore reaction engineering classes, and I was awarded twice for excellence in teaching for senior process control class by the college of engineering and chemical engineering department. My experience has taught me one very valuable thing about teaching and how students receive the information, and it was being able to convey the information as simple as possible while making analogies to more absorbed topics by students and showing your enthusiasm by doing so. Students always recognize when the teacher loves what they are doing, and they become more receptive. I know it because my English wasn’t great back then, in addition I felt insecure most of the time when I had to teach Laplace transform to 180 students; but I love teaching and I did my best to convey the information to them sincerely, on top of that I showed them that I understood them because I knew how it felt in my senior year when the Laplace transform was first introduced. I know and have experienced that both as a student and a teacher that the teacher’s energy always radiates in the lecture hall, and it matters. It changes the students’ attitude towards the topic and gives them courage to put more effort to understand the topic. I also believe in listening to the students’ feedback and following their instructions such as including more numerical examples or repeating the same topic repeatedly, because they are the receiver end of this communication. My goal in teaching is always to show them that they can solve most of the problems and working with the students to excel the communication during the lectures.

Given my educational background (B.S., M.Sc., and Ph.D in chemical engineering) and experience, I feel confident in teaching several chemical engineering courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. I have taken and worked on computational biophysics classes and topics such as molecular dynamics simulations and drug discovery during my master’s, and I am still confident in teaching those topics. For undergraduate courses, I am interested in teaching mass and energy balances, reaction kinetics, mass and heat transfer, and process control. Among the graduate level courses, I would like to teach process control, mathematics, and reaction engineering.