Biography

Aydin K. Sunol is a Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the University of South Florida. He was educated in Chemical Engineering (BS, Bogazici University; PhD from Va. Tech, 1982) and Industrial Engineering (M.Eng, Va. Tech). He has edited three books on Batch Processing Systems, Artificial Intelligence in Engineering, and Pollution Prevention through Supercritical Fluids as well as having over hundred publications, and four patent portfolios. His inventions led to key green innovations, processes, and products globally. He has won departmental teaching award at Virginia Tech (1981), The College of Engineering Teaching Award at U. of South Florida (1984) and the University of South Florida Outstanding Teaching award (2003). He directed the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Batch Processing Systems (1991) and initiated the Artificial Intelligence program in Systems group of Technical Chemistry at ETH Zurich Switzerland (1990). He served as Tokten (Unesco) fellow to Turkey (1990). Dr. Sunol had industrial positions with ICI (UK), Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz (Switzerland), BASF (Germany) and Kimsas (Turkey)and academic positions at Virginia Tech (1980-2), Bosphorous University (Turkey) (1993), ETH (Switzerland) (1989-90) and Princeton University (2009-10). At U. of South Florida, he regularly teaches the capstone Plant and Product Design course series as well as courses in Thermodynamics, Mathematical Methods, and Separation Processes and Systems Engineering. He initiated the Green Engineering and Chemistry work group and course; currently he is in editorial board of “Conservation, Information, Evolution - towards a sustainable engineering and economy” and International Committee Chair for sustainable engineering forum.

Dr. Sunol practiced as professional engineer (PE) in Florida for many years; developed and taught continuing education courses on Computer Aided Process Engineering and Artificial Intelligence in Process Industries; he is the principal partner and CTO of Temptroll LLC and Accent Creations LLC that develops and manufactures self-heating and cooling products; and CTA of Space Propulsion Systems Inc. (a public company).

The unifying theme of his research is “Environmentally Friendly Engineering Systems” with following specifics:

• Supercritical Fluid Technology: High pressure, Physico-chemical Property Measurement and Estimation, Reactions in Supercritical Fluids, Mass transfer, Design of Innovative Processing Schemes for Separation and Materials Processing, and Applications of Critical Region Technology to Pharmaceuticals, Forest Products, Food and Beverages, Synthetic Fuels, Microelectronics, Environmental, Biochemical and Materials.

• Processing Systems Engineering: Knowledge Based Systems, Machine Learning, Optimization, Fault Diagnosis, Uncertainty and Risk analysis, Process and Product design, and Economic Analysis, Engineering Data Bases and mining, Scheduling and Planning

With funding from DOE, NSF, NATO, UNESCO, NAVY, NASA, Weyerhauser, Calgon Carbon, Merck, MEI, ASTI, International Paper, Kamyr, Florida High Tech Counsel, Florida Enterprise, ACES, Baxter, Exigent, PsiloQuest, Anheauser Busch, Donovan Industries, Advanced Material Development Inc, Ahlstrom, Space PropulsionSystems Inc, SC Johnson,Vista International Packaging and Temptroll.

Dr. Sunol advised 15 doctorate and 26 Master students in his fields of research, Systems Engineering and Supercritical Fluids through graduate programs in Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, and Chemical Engineering. He currently has 8 graduate students.

Dr. Sunol organized sessions in AIChE meetings on Supercritical Fluids and Sustainability (Orlando, March 1990, Minneapolis, August 1992, Miami, November 1992, Los Angeles 1997; San Francisco 2006; Nashville 2009; Pittsburg 2012. Co-organized symposium at ACS on Supercritical Fluid Extraction (New Orleans, March 1996; organized NATO Advanced Study Institute on Batch Processing Systems Engineering, May 29-June 7, 1992, Turkey; organized AIENG 96 (International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Engineering), Clearwater Florida, September 1996.