Congratulations to Rakesh Agrawal and Mohit Tawarmalani for receiving the 2024 Computing in Chemical Engineering Award, for the development of innovative computational models, numerical algorithms, and physical insights leading to sustainable and energy-efficient distillation, membrane, and chemical processes with real-world applications!
Rakesh Agrawal is the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. His research includes energy systems analysis, shale gas processing, biomass to liquid fuel conversion, synthesis of efficient separation processes using distillation and membranes, gas separations and liquefaction, agrivoltaics, and novel processes for the fabrication of low-cost thin-film solar cells. His honors include the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from the President of the United States of America. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors and the AIChE. He holds 135 U.S. patents and has published over 270 technical papers and has given over 280 invited lectures. He formerly worked at Air Products and Chemicals, where he rose to the highest technical position of Air Products Fellow. He received chemical engineering degrees from IIT Kanpur, University of Delaware, and MIT.
Mohit Tawarmalani is the Acting Executive Associate Dean of Faculty and the Allison and Nancy Schleicher Professor of Management at the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business at Purdue University. Mohit’s research lies at the intersection of computer science, optimization, and operations research with applications in areas of molecular design, efficient and sustainable separations, renewable energy, networking, and pricing. His honors include INFORMS Computing Society Prize in 2004, the Best Paper Award from WITS in 2005, and the Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize from the Mathematical Optimization Society in 2006. He led the Purdue team that won the 2023 INFORMS UPS George D. Smith Prize and was twice selected as the Salgo-Noren Outstanding Master’s Teacher by graduate students. He received his degrees in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and IIT Delhi (India).
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