Author: Wentao Tang

The research group welcomes Damilola Fasiku to join as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2023. Damilola obtained his Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria in 2020. Before admitted to the Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering program at NC State, he worked as a research assistant with Prof. Oluwafemi Taiwo. He will carry out research at the interface of data-driven control and optimization.

Cormak Weeks has been awarded the NIH T-32 Comparative Molecular Medicine Training Program Fellowship, underscoring his potential to lead interdisciplinary research. This program will play a pivotal role in further developing his proficiency in tackling intricate research challenges, guiding diverse teams, and nurturing his leadership abilities. Cormak's active involvement in the project "AI-driven microstructure control of printed soft materials for drug delivery applications" aligns harmoniously with the program's objectives. Cormak's advisors are glad to see that this T-32 award will provide essential funding to pay for his tuition and fees.

Nathan Johnson, a junior undergraduate student in CBE, continues his research project after the summer break. Pursuing a double major in Chemical Engineering and Paper Science, he is interested in energy system optimization of paper plants.

Angela Ni, a sophomore student in CBE, joins the group as an undergraduate researcher. She is intrigued by the idea of using data science in the analysis of chemical engineering problems. The goal for her research is to apply data-driven methods to perform dynamical analysis.

Both of them are supported by the REU fund from the College of Engineering.

Moritz Woelk will present the paper "Dissipativity Learning Control through Estimation from Online Trajectories", coauthored by the PI and Moritz, at 2023 American Control Conference. This presentation will be delivered at 15:45-16:00, June 1, in the regular session "ThB13 -- Stability of Nonlinear Systems II".

The PI will deliver an oral presentation on "Nonconvex Constrained Distributed Optimization for Plantwide Model Predictive Control", coauthored with Prof. Prodromos Daoutidis, at 2023 SIAM Conference on Optimization. This presentation will be delivered at 11:15-11:40, June 1, in the "MS135 -- Optimization in Control – Algorithms, Applications, and Software - Part II of III" mini-symposium.

The group welcomes the joining of Wajahat Yusuf Sayyed, a first-year M.S. student in Chemical Engineering, and Nathan Johnson, a sophomore student who dual majors in Paper Science & Engineering and Chemical Engineering. They will work on customized projects that fit their interests and development goals.