Associate Professor in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of Notre Dame
Sustainability encompasses many wicked problems involving complex interdependencies across social, natural, and engineered systems. We argue holistic multiscale modeling and decision-support frameworks are needed to address multifaceted interdisciplinary aspects of these wicked problems. This review highlights three emerging research areas for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and data science (DS) in molecular-to-systems engineering for sustainability: (1) molecular discovery and materials design, (2) automation and self-driving laboratories, (3) process and systems-of-systems optimization. Recent advances in AI and ML are highlighted in four contemporary application areas in chemical engineering design: (1) equitable energy systems, (2) decarbonizing the power sector, (3) circular economies for critical materials, and (4) next-generation heating and cooling. These examples illustrate how AI, ML, and DS enable more sophisticated interdisciplinary multiscale models, faster optimization algorithms, more accurate uncertainty quantification, smarter and faster data collection, and incorporation of diverse stakeholders into decision-making processes, improving the robustness of engineering and policy designs while focusing on the multifaceted goals and constraints in wicked problems. Read more in the open-access conference paper at
https://psecommunity.org/LAPSE:2024.1504.
Alexander (Alex) Dowling is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA) with a concurrent appointment in Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics. His research combines chemical engineering, computational optimization, machine learning, and data science organized in three research themes: (1) molecular-to-systems (multiscale) modeling and optimization, (2) optimal design of experiments and statistical inference, and (3) machine learning for bridging timescales. Applications domains include energy markets and infrastructure, integrated energy systems, carbon sequestration, sustainable hydrogen, critical mineral recycling, and advanced separations (membranes, ionic liquids). Prof. Dowling has been recognized with an NSF CAREER award (2019), the Junior Sargent Medal from IChemE (2023), the university-wide Mentoring Award from the Graduate Student Government (2023), and two R&D 100 awards. He holds a B.S.E from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, all in chemical engineering.
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