This travel grant is support for the seventh conference on Foundations of Computer Aided Process Design (FOCAPD) that will take place during the summer of 2009. The location of the conference will be most likely Colorado.
Intellectual Merit:
The international conference on the Foundations of Computer-Aided Process Design (FOCAPD) is an international conference that focuses on the fundamentals and applications of computer-aided design for the process industries. Six previous FOCAPD conferences have been held. As a result of the success of these previous conferences and the positive feedback of attendees of the latest FOCAPD (held at Princeton University in 2004), it was determined that there is a need to proceed with the Seventh FOCAPD in 2009.
The key theme for the conference will be ?Design for Energy and the Environment?. It is anticipated that the conference will run for five days in the Summer of 2009. A one-day pre-conference short course/workshop is also planned (in FOCAPD 2004, a pre-conference workshop on teaching process and product design was offered and was very popular among attendees). The targeted number of attendees is about 150. Serious efforts will be made to have a good mix of industrial participants (operating companies, engineering firms, consulting offices, etc.), faculty, students, and government representatives.
Broader Impact:
FOCAPD 2009 will be a major event in process systems engineering that will bring together a diverse group of academic leaders, industrial and government experts, young faculty, graduate students, and researchers in the field. It is expected that the conference will have the following impact: 1. Review recent progress in the area of process design and assess successes, failures, hurdles, and contributions.
2. Identify future research opportunities, directions, and emerging trends.
3. Describe challenges in addressing emerging technologies, especially in the areas of the environment and energy.
4. Enable networking and discussion opportunities between junior and senior researchers in the field as well as participants from academia, the government, industry, and professional organizations.
