James Rawlings

Biography

James B. Rawlings received the B.S. from the University of Texas and the Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, both in Chemical Engineering. He spent one year at the University of Stuttgart as a NATO postdoctoral fellow and then joined the faculty at the University of Texas. He moved to the University of Wisconsin in 1995 and is currently the Steenbock Professor of Engineering and W. Harmon Ray Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and the co-director of the Texas-Wisconsin-California Control Consortium (TWCCC). Professor Rawlings's research interests are in the areas of chemical process modeling, monitoring and control, nonlinear model predictive control, moving horizon state estimation, and molecular-scale chemical reaction engineering. He has written numerous research articles and coauthored three textbooks: "Modeling and Analysis Principles for Chemical and Biological Engineers" (2013) with Mike Graham, "Model Predictive Control: Theory and Design" (2009), with David Mayne, and "Chemical Reactor Analysis and Design Fundamentals," 2nd ed. (2012), with John Ekerdt. In recognition of his research and teaching, Professor Rawlings has received several awards including: National Academy of Engineering; "Doctor technices honoris causa" from the Danish Technical University; The inaugural High Impact Paper Award from the International Federation of Automatic Control; The Ragazzini Education Award from the American Automatic Control Council; The Computing in Chemical Engineering Award and Excellence in Process Development Award from the AICHE; The Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award, a WARF Named Professorship, and the Byron Bird Award for Excellence in a Research Publication, from the University of Wisconsin; He is a fellow of IFAC, IEEE, and AIChE.