CITRIS Distinguished Speaker Series, 306 Soda Hall, Berkeley Campus

• October 28, 2005: 3:00pm - 4:00pm
• Contact: travisr@eecs.berkeley.edu
• Location: 306 Soda Hall, Berkeley Campus

"Collaborative science: a case study for chemical kinetics"

Speakers: Prof. Michael Frenklach and Prof. Andy Packard, Mechanical Eng., UCB


Abstract:

Chemical kinetics modeling can be viewed as a high dimensional, distributed,
system identification problem.  Traditional channels of dissemination,
e.g.  journal papers and web-site data compilations, have proven to be inadequate in pooling and extracting all information implicit in the community's research portfolio.  An alternate approach using independently contributed web-based assertions of models and experimental outcomes, each potentially originating from distinct research groups, along with global optimization to reason and infer with these assertions is promising.  However, sociological questions/issues such as "to whom is credit due?" and "why should I participate in this collaborative effort?" arise.  We will detail why the alternative approach is
preferable and discuss a new research effort aimed at deploying the tools within the chemical kinetics community.  We also discuss our experience using these ideas in atmospheric chemistry and systems biology settings.


Michael Frenklach joined UCB Mechanical Engineering in 1995. He received MS from Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology in 1969 and PhD in Physical Chemistry from Hebrew University in 1976. After postdocing at McGill University and MIT, he joined Chemical Engineering Department at LSU and six years later Department of Materials Science and Engineering at PennState.  His research interests lie in the areas of chemical kinetics, complex reaction networks, and computer modeling. The physical systems considered in his studies are hydrocarbon combustion, nanopowder synthesis, chemical vapor deposition of diamond films, and formation of interstellar dust.


Andy Packard joined UCB Mechanical Engineering in 1990, two years after earning his PhD under the direction of Shankar Sastry. He was a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at Caltech, and an assistant professor at UC Santa Barbara in Electrical and Computer Engineering.  He is a recipient of the campus Distinguished Teaching Award, the 1995 Eckman Award, and the 2005 IEEE Control System Technology Award.  He is an author of the muTools and Robust Control toolboxes distributed by Mathworks. The Meyersound X-10 loudspeaker utilizes novel feedback control circuitry developed by his UCB research group.