Panagiotis D. Christofides was born in Athens, Greece, in 1970. He received the Diploma in Chemical Engineering degree in 1992, from the University of Patras, Greece, the M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics in 1995 and 1996, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering in 1996, all from the University of Minnesota. Since July 1996 he has been with the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is currently a Professor and Chair in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the holder of the William D. Van Vorst Chair in Chemical Engineering Education. His theoretical research interests include nonlinear and predictive control, and analysis and control of distributed parameter systems, multiscale systems and hybrid systems, with applications to chemical processes, advanced materials processing, particulate processes, energy and water systems. His research work has resulted in a large number of articles in leading scientific journals and conference proceedings and seven books that have earned him a Google Scholar h-index of 66 to date. He has advised over sixty graduate students and has graduated thirty-six PhD students, many of whom hold leading positions in academia or industry including twelve at the faculty of major universities worldwide.
A description of his research interests and a list of his publications and students can be found at http://www.chemeng.ucla.edu/pchristo/index.html. He has received several awards for his teaching and research work including the Teaching Award from the AIChE Student Chapter of UCLA in 1997, a Research Initiation Grant from the ACS-Petroleum Research Fund in 1998, a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 1998, the Ted Peterson Student Paper Award, the Outstanding Young Researcher Award and the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award from the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division of AIChE in 1999, 2008 and 2018, respectively, and a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research in 2001. He has also received twice the O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award in 2000 and 2004, and the Donald P. Eckman Award in 2004, all from the American Automatic Control Council. He is Fellow of IEEE, IFAC, AAAS and AIChE. He has served on the Editorial Board of leading control and chemical engineering journals and conferences.