Biomolecular Engineering and the Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his BS from the University of Minnesota -Twin cities, both in chemical engineering. In his post-doctoral work, he cofounded a water-tech start-up company focusing on developing flexible high-efficiency solar-driven desalination technologies for diverse applications where membrane technologies prove inadequate. At UConn, his core research focus is on optimization theory, methods, and software for modeling and simulation, robust simulation and design, and controls and operations. His application interests lie in addressing challenging and timely applications from a spectrum of industries including food, energy, water and natural resources, chemicals, finance, and healthcare. The systems-level thinking combined with quantitative rigor enables the development of novel solutions to emerging and intractable problems across these diverse areas.