Brent Sherman is the real-time optimization engineer at Dow’s steam cracker LHC–8 in Freeport, TX. He is responsible for maximizing profit while maintaining safe and reliable operation. In this role, he works with the plant operations staff to coordinate changing feed slates and to optimize the plant at each feed slate.
Brent began his career at Dow in 2016, hiring in through the Operations Ph. D. program. He joined the Global Separations Technology Group in Lake Jackson, TX. There, he was responsible for distillation tower design, operation, and turnaround inspection support. He supported projects in Argentina, Wales, Texas, Michigan, Kentucky, and Louisiana. In 2019, he moved to New Orleans, LA to support the Olefins crackers at St. Charles Operations as an improvement engineer. He served as a manufacturing representative for two flare gas recovery projects through front-end engineering design and detailed design. In this role, he provided plant feedback to the engineering team to ensure the design would be safe and effective. He also assisted in restart efforts after hurricane Ida in 2021. He was the Reactive Chemicals Focal Point and coordinator of a Lunch and Learn seminar series. In 2022, he moved to back to Texas to take his role at LHC–8 in Freeport.
Brent has a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and a Doctor of Philosophy in chemical engineering from The University of Texas. Under Dr. Gary T. Rochelle, Brent wrote his dissertation on amine scrubbing for carbon capture from coal or natural gas fired power plants. His focus was on developing chemical process models to validate experimental results and simulate the full-scale process. The advanced solvent and flowsheet technology has been licensed to Honeywell. He also served as the head teaching assistant for the senior design course.