Prof. Tapio Westerlund

Tapio Westerlund is professor of Process Design with tenure since 1986 as well as head of the Process Design and Systems Engineering Laboratory at Åbo Akademi University. He has been the dean of the Department of Chemical Engineering, research professor in a Nordic PhD research program in Process Integration, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, as well as research manager and head of the Research Institute of the Foundation of ÅAU.

His research interests are in the field of process systems engineering, with emphasis on developing mixed integer optimization methods for solving large scale optimization problems in science and engineering.

He has published about 150 refereed papers, several book chapters and two monographs. Westerlund has been the supervisor or co-supervisor of 24 PhD, 13 licentiate and about 130 master’s theses. Professor Westerlund is member of the Advisory Board of MINLP World, associate editor and member of the editorial boards of International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Journal of Global Optimization. Presently he is also chairman of the Centre of Excellence in Optimization and Systems Engineering at ÅAU and Deputy Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering.