Christodoulos Floudas
1959 – 2016
Class of 2013-14
Princeton University
National Academy of Engineering
A world-renowned authority in mathematical modeling and the optimization of complex systems, Christodoulos A. Floudas conducts research in chemical process systems engineering, which is found at the intersection of chemical engineering, applied mathematics, and operations research.
During a career that spans four decades, Floudas has developed useful tools for optimization and found novel pathways for energy conversion and conservation. The scope of his research includes chemical process synthesis and design, process control and operations, discrete-continuous nonlinear optimization, local and global optimization, and computational chemistry and molecular biology.
Floudas earned his doctorate in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1986 and joined the faculty at Princeton University as an assistant professor later that year. Today, Floudas is a professor of chemical and biological engineering at Princeton University and has served since 2007 as the Stephen C. Macaleer ’63 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science.
In addition, he has been a visiting professor at England’s Imperial College, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the University of Vienna, the Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute in Greece, and the University of Minnesota.
In 2011, Floudas became a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also a member of the Biophysical Society, the Operations Research Society of America, the Mathematical Programming Society, and the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
China selected Floudas in 2012 for its One Thousand Global Experts program, which attracts distinguished scientists and engineers from around the world. In 2013, Floudas became a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and received the National Award and Gold Medal from the Hellenic Operations Research Society during the 2nd International and 24th National Symposium on Operations Research in Athens, Greece. In addition, he has received the Bodossaki Foundation Academic Prize in Applied Sciences, as well as two major honors from the AIChE, the Professional Progress Award, and the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award.
Floudas has authored two graduate textbooks, Nonlinear Mixed-Integer Optimization, published by Oxford University Press in 1995, and Deterministic Global Optimization, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000. He is the chief co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Optimization, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2001, with a second edition published by Springer Science+Business Media in 2008.
Floudas has published more than 270 refereed articles and delivered more than 320 invited lectures, seminars, and named lectures, including the Bayer Lecture at Carnegie Mellon, the Professor Roger W.H. Sargent Lecture at Imperial College, and the George T. Piercy Lecture at the University of Minnesota. He has supervised thirty-seven doctoral students and twenty postdoctoral associates and received Princeton’s 2007 Graduate Mentoring Award.
As a TIAS Faculty Fellow, Floudas collaborated with faculty and students in the Dwight Look College of Engineering’s Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering.
In 2014, Dr. Floudas joined the University as director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute, and holder of the Earle Nye ’59 Chair Professor for Engineering Excellence in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering.