Efstratios N. Pistikopoulos

Professor Efstratios N. (Stratos) Pistikopoulos FREng is an alumnus of Professor Ignacio Grossmann from Carnegie Mellon University.He is a distinguished research Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, as well as the Director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute. From 1991-2015, he was a Professor for Chemical Engineering at Imperial College, where he pioneered multi-parametric programming and invented the concept of explicit or multi-parametric model predictive control. He has authored and co/authored more than 350 peer reviewed journal articles, authored and/or edited 9 books and has been an invited speaker to many Academic conferences and lectures, including the 21st Professor Roger W. H. Sargent lecture at Imperial College London (held on 4 December 2014) entitled "Multi-Parametric Programming & Control 25 years later: what is next?". Additionally, Professor Pistikopoulos has been elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2013.

Professor Pistikopoulos received the Diploma in Chemical Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 1984, and continued his education with his Ph.D. studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh under the supervision of the esteemed Professor Grossmann. He graduated in 1988, and his thesis was entitled "Systematic procedures to improve process flexibility in retrofit design". After working with Shell Chemicals in Amsterdam, he joined Imperial College London in 1991 as an assistant professor.

During his time at Imperial College London, Pistikopoulos was significantly involved in the growth of the Centre for Process Systems Engineering, whose director he was from 2002 to 2009. Additionally, he supervised many M.Sc. students as well as over 50 Ph.D. students, and numerous postdoctoral associates. He is also a founder/director of Parametric Optimization Solutions (ParOS Ltd), as well as a co-founder of PSE Ltd, where he is currently serving as a senior strategic advisor. In 2015, Pistikopoulos joined Texas A&M University as Distinguished Research Professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering as well as the Associate Director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute.

Throughout his career, Pistikopoulos has been the (co-)recipient of many awards and honours including the MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2007, the Advances Investigator Award from the European Research Council in 2008, holding the Bayer Lecture in Process Systems Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 2009 and delivering the 21st Roger W.H. Sargent lecture at Imperial College in 2014. Additionally, he received the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award of the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in 2012 and was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Bucharest in 2014, and from the University of Pannonia in 2015. In 2013, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the United Kingdom. Pistikopoulos currently has a h-index of 69.

Pistikopoulos was awarded the 2020 Sargent Medal, which is named after Named after Roger W. H. Sargent, by the Institution of Chemical Engineers.

The main research interests of Professor Pistikopoulos are

• The development of Parametric Programming theory, as well as the development of novel algorithms and solution procedures for certain classes of problems.
• The application of Parametric Programming to model predictive control (MPC), which allows for the explicit solution of the underlying optimization problem, hence removing the necessity of online optimization
• The use and refinement of the PAROC Framework and software platform, a unified framework and software platform for the design, operational optimization and model-based control of process systems.
• research regarding energy systems engineering, with a particular focus on holistic, system-based approach producing optimal design and operational plans for multi-scale systems.
• biomedical systems engineering, and in particular the use of an interdisciplinary approach towards the modelling and optimization of biomedical systems
• sustainable manufacturing, which includes aspects such as process integration, pollution prevention and process sustainability.

Currently, Professor Pistikopoulos holds the following positions:

• Distinguished Research Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University
• Director at Texas A&M Energy Institute
• Editor, Computers & Chemical Engineering (together with Jay H. Lee, A.B. Póvoa, and Fengqi You)
• Editorial Board, Journal of Global Optimization, Kluwer
• Editorial Board, Computational Management Science, Springer
• Editorial Board, Energy Systems, Springer
• Editorial Board, Frontiers of Energy and Power Engineering in China, Springer
• Acamdemic Trustee, Computer Aids in Chemical Engineering (CACHE)
• 2nd Vice-Chair of the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)