Schedule | FOPAM

FOPAM 2026 Schedule

Workshop to be led by Bea Braun (Dow), Jose Tabora (Bristol Myers Squibb) and Bhushan Gopaluni (University of British Columbia)

Sunday July 26, 12:30PM-4PM, Monday July 27 8:30 AM -12PM and 1PM - 4:30PM

6:00 PM Welcome Reception
7:00 PM Keynote Speaker: Dr. Brenda Remy, Head of Enterprise AI, General Electric Healthcare "The Enterprise AI Revolution: How AI Technologies are Unlocking Value Across the Med Tech Value Chain"

9:00 AM Prof. Andrew Allman, University of Michigan Department of Chemical Engineering "Ensuring GenAI Works for Chemical Process Systems: Perspectives on Use Cases and Alignment"
9:45 AM Prof. Manabu Kano, Department of Chemical Engineering and Department of Informatics, Kyoto University "Learning Process Models When Data Are Scarce: Transferable Knowledge for Process Monitoring and Optimization"
10:30 AM Networking Break
11:00 AM Panel Discussion (Prof. Allman, Prof. Kano, Prof. Yao Xie (Georgia Tech))

Session Chairs: Cristina Thomas, Charles Crowell

Industrial AI and Machine Learning I

1:30 PM Dr. Ivan Castillo, Senior Technology Manager, Dow "From Insight to Action: AI-Powered Decisions in the Chemical Industry"
2:15 PM Dr. Samyakh Tukra Chief AI Officer and Co-founder, Applied Computing "Grounded Multi-Agent Systems for Decision Support in Industrial Operations"
3:00 PM Networking Break
3:30 PM Panel Discussion (Dr. Castillo, Dr. Tukra, Dr. Michael Lovette (Merck))

Session Chairs: Jose Tabora, Dan Floyd

Poster Session I

AI and Machine Learning for Sustainable Process and Product Chemistry

9:00 AM Prof. Noa Marom, Dept of Material Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University "Machine Learning the Excited State Properties of Crystalline Organic Semiconductors"
9:45 AM Prof. Andrew Medford, School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Tech
10:30 AM Networking Break "Large Scale Datasets and Machine Learning for Direct Air Capture: The Open DAC Project and Beyond"
11:00 AM Panel (Prof. Marom, Prof. Medford, Dr. Sukrit Mukhopadhyay (Standard Industries))

Session Chairs: Bea Braun, Evan Downs

Industrial AI and Machine Learning II

1:30 PM Dr. Olav Lyngberg, VP Innovation and Technology Deployment, Janssen Pharmaceuticals "A Decade of Digitizing Pharmaceutical Manufacturing at JnJ: Lessons Learned and Future Directions"
2:15 PM Dr. Zhenyu Wang, Senior Manager, Decision Science, Corporate Technology, Lubrizol Corporation “From Data to Decisions: Success and Challenges in the Chemical Industry”
3:00 PM Networking Break
3:30 PM Panel (Dr. Lyngberg, Dr. Wang, Dr. Sal Garcia Munoz (Eli Lilly))

Session Chairs: Benjamin Comer,

Poster Session II

AI and Machine Learning for Processes and Control

9:00 AM Prof. Nick Sahinidis, School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Tech
"Data-driven Optimization: Efficient Adaptive Learning for Self-Driving Laboratories"
9:45 AM Prof. Ali Mesbah, Dept of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, UC Berkeley "Local-Global Learning of Interpretable Control Polices: The Interface between MPC and Reinforcement Learning"
10:30 AM Networking Break
11:00 AM Panel Discussion (Prof. Sahinidis, Prof. Mesbah, Prof. Thomas Badgewell (University of Texas at Austin)

Session Chairs: Warren Seider, Paromita Nath

AI and Machine Learning for Education and Workforce Development, including Responsible AI Discussion

1:30 PM Profs. Carl Laird and John Kitchin, Dept of Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, "Designing the Future Engineer: How AI Is Transforming Learning, Work, and Discovery"
2:15 PM Prof. Y.A. Liu, Dept of Chemical Engineering, Virginia Tech, "Expanding the Science-Guided Machine Learning Applications for Process Industries: Advances, Education and Workforce Development"
3:00 PM Networking Break
3:30 PM Panel Discussion

Session Chairs: Martha Grover, Robert Hesketh