Process Control

B. Wayne Bequette is a Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Technology Manager for the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Center (SMIC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where his research efforts are focused on the modeling and control of chemical process, biomedical, biopharma, and food manufacturing systems. He serves as the Board Secretary for the American Automatic Control Council (AACC) and as a Trustee of the Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE) Corporation. Dr. Bequette is a founding member of the editorial board of the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology and serves on the editorial board of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. He is a Fellow of IEEE, AIChE, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE), and was inducted into the Arkansas Academy of Chemical Engineers. He is the author of Process Control: Modeling, Design, and Simulation, Second Edition, and Process Dynamics: Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation (both from Pearson), and has published 17 book chapters and more than 125 refereed journal articles. While completing a BS in chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas, Dr. Bequette worked at Arkansas Eastman (handling utility and waste treatment problems) and Cosden Oil and Chemical. After his undergraduate studies, he was a process engineer at American Petrofina, where he had the chance to serve as a process operator during two work stoppages. This sparked his interest in process automation and control, enticing him to the University of Texas at Austin to earn a PhD with a focus on multivariable control-system analysis and design. He spent a year as a visiting lecturer at the University of California at Davis before becoming a professor at Rensselaer in 1988. While at Rensselaer, he has had the good fortune to serve as the advisor for 23 PhD students, in addition to teaching chemical process dynamics and control to at least 1500 undergraduate students. His outside interests include bicycling and pole-vaulting.