Professor Venkatasubramanian will review the different phases of Artificial intelligence (AI) in process systems engineering (PSE) over the past 30 years and argue that the time for AI in PSE, and in other domains, has arrived, finally.
AI started off with great promise in the early 1980s, spurred by the successes of the expert system paradigm in certain applications. This prompted a flurry of research activities in PSE in the mid-1980s. However, as the ensuing three decades showed, AI didn’t live up to its promise in PSE. The great success stories in PSE from the last three decades are mainly simulation, optimization and model predictive control.
The next 30 years will witness phenomenal progress in AI, with transformational impact on human societies. Venkat will offer some possible visions of the coming phases of AI in this context. In particular, he will discuss the theory of self-organizing intelligent agents and its implications in economics and sociology. He will also discuss the challenges, opportunities and emerging trends in diverse areas such as molecular products design, pharmaceutical manufacturing and systemic risk management.
Light refreshments will be served at a reception for Prof. Venkatasubramanian at 3 pm in E6-2024.
Biographical Sketch
Professor Venkat Venkatasubramanian is Samuel Ruben-Peter G. Viele Professor of Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Computer Science (Affiliate), and Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (Affiliate) at Columbia University in the City of New York. He earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering at Cornell, MS in Physics at Vanderbilt, and BTech in Chemical Engineering at the University of Madras, India. Venkat worked as a Research Associate in Artificial Intelligence in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University. He taught at Purdue University for many years, before returning to Columbia in 2011.
At Columbia, Venkat directs the research efforts in the Complex Resilient Intelligent Systems Laboratory. He is also the founding Co-Director of the Center for the Management of Systemic Risk, a transdisciplinary center focused on understanding how complex systems fail in order to prevent or mitigate such failures in the future, with faculty from a number of departments at Columbia University.
By inclination and education, Venkat is attracted to fundamental questions that are at the intersection of different disciplines. A leitmotif in his work is understanding emergent phenomena in self-organized complex systems, particularly using artificial intelligence, statistical mechanics, game theory, and systems engineering concepts and techniques. Venkat’s research contributions have been in the areas of process fault diagnosis and risk management, materials discovery analytics, pharmaceutical engineering, and income inequality.
Prof. Venkatasubramanian received the Norris Shreve Award for Outstanding Teaching in Chemical Engineering three times at Purdue University. He won the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award from AIChE and is a Fellow of AIChE. In 2011, the College of Engineering at Purdue University recognized his contributions with the Research Excellence Award. He is a past-President of the Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE) Corporation. He currently serves as an Editor for Computers and Chemical Engineering. His new book, How Much Inequality is Fair? Mathematical Principles of a Moral, Optimal, and Stable Capitalist Society, was published in 2017. Venkat’s other interests include comparative theology, classical music and cricket.