Ricardo Lima has joined the Center for Uncertainty Quantification in Computational Science & Engineering at KAUST. Ricardo is a Chemical Engineer specializing in Process Systems Engineering and Energy Systems, with specific interests in mathematical programming, applied optimization, decision-support and decision-making in the presence of uncertainty, energy systems, process synthesis, and the scheduling/planning of industrial processes.
He earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal. Ricardo was fortunate enough to do his PhD under supervision of Professor Romualdo Salcedo and Domingos Barbosa. His PhD research focused on the application of stochastic search based algorithms for the optimization of chemical engineering processes, namely the design and synthesis of reactive distillation columns.
From 2006-2011, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, USA. His stay at CMU is marked by an indelible collaboration with Professor Ignacio Grossmann, who has introduced Ricardo to mathematical programming and process synthesis using superstructures and Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) models. His research activities were related with the synthesis of crystallization processes for para-xylene recovery.
In 2008, Ricardo and Ignacio Grossmann started a research project with the Glass Business and Discovery Center from PPG Industries under the umbrella project “Enterprise Wide Optimization” between CMU and several world companies. During this time, Ricardo was an invited Senior Researcher at PPG Industries, where he participated in several enterprise cross functional projects involving people from manufacturing, supply chain, marketing and research. From the technical point of view, his research activities were focused on the development of Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) models and solution strategies for the simultaneous planning and long-term scheduling of continuous processes with complex recycle structures.
In 2011, Ricardo was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship from a European Marie Curie COFUND Action, and he joined the National Laboratory of Energy and Geology (LNEG) in Lisbon, Portugal. In LNEG he was the principal investigator of the project “Planning and scheduling of optimal mix of renewable sources in sustainable power systems”. In this project, Ricardo focus was on: a) the global optimization of short-term hydro scheduling problems represented by MINLP models, by using Generalized Disjunctive Programming, convex McCormick Envelopes, and spatial branch and bound algorithms; and b) 2-stage adaptive robust optimization applied to the scheduling and electricity market involvement of virtual power plants.
His current research interests lie at the development of mathematical programming models and decompositions strategies for optimization under uncertainty. More specifically, Ricardo is interested in the application and development of models and methods based on stochastic programming, and 2-stage adaptive robust optimization in energy related problems. In the SRI-UQ is looking forward to building bridges between optimization and uncertainty quantification.
