Baldea, Michael Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Undergraduate Advisor
Frank A. Liddell, Jr. Fellowship in Chemical Engineering

Assistant Professor Michael Baldea

Office: CPE 4.466 Mailing Address:
Phone: (512) 471-1281 The University of Texas at Austin
Fax:  (512) 471-7060 McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering
Email: mbaldea@che.utexas.edu 200 E Dean Keeton St. Stop C0400
UT Mail: C0400 Austin, TX 78712-1589

Research Areas: Process Engineering, Energy

Research Group Website

Research Presentation for Prospective Graduate Students

Educational Qualifications

Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota (2006)
M.Sc., Interface Process Engineering, “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (2001)
Diploma, Chemical Engineering, “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (2000)

Focus

Modeling, simulation, optimization and control of process and energy systems

Research

Research in our group addresses theoretical challenges and problems of practical importance in the area of process and energy systems engineering. We rely on concepts from multiple fields – nonlinear systems, control, optimization and numerical methods – to develop new theory, algorithms and software tools. Our work follows three major thrusts: integrated decision-making in the chemical and energy supply chains, monitoring and optimizing process performance, and process integration and intensification. Important applications include i) integrating scheduling and control decisions (with a particular focus on chemical plants that interact with the electric grid and can provide ancillary services), ii) quantifying plant-model mismatch for model-based controllers, iii) process data visualization, iv) equation-oriented process simulation and optimization and, v) design and control of intensified processes such as dividing-wall columns and autothermal reactors. Our research has a strong translational component and we have implemented and validated several of our results on industrial test beds.

Awards & Honors

AIChE Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology (2019)

Outstanding Young Researcher Award, Computing and Systems Technology Division of AIChE (2017)

NSF CAREER Award (2015-2020)

Moncrief Grand Challenges Faculty Award, Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (2014)


Selected Publications

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