PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Fani Boukouvala

From Piraeus, Greece, Fani Boukouvala is a chemical engineer whose research brings machine learning and optimization into process systems engineering for complex systems. She earned a chemical-engineering BS in Athens and a Rutgers PhD on continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing, then held postdoctoral posts at Princeton and Texas A&M before joining Georgia Tech in 2016. Her work combines machine learning with chemical engineering principles, with a 2020 NSF CAREER project, a 2023 white paper on process systems engineering, and a 2025 paper on surrogate hybridization. In 2023, she received AIChE's CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award and joined a Scialog team that won a Collaborative Innovation Award for work on adsorbent degradation. As of October 2026, she is an associate professor and lab PI at Georgia Tech.

Timeline

  1. 2008–2013

    Chemical engineering degrees

    Originally from Piraeus, Greece, she earns a BS in chemical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in May 2008. At Rutgers, she studies modeling and optimization of continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing under Marianthi G. Ierapetritou and earns a PhD in chemical and biochemical engineering in January 2013.

  2. 2012–2016

    Princeton and Texas A&M posts

    From December 2012 to December 2014, she is a postdoctoral research associate in Princeton's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, working on grey/black-box and global optimization for energy systems. From January 2014 to August 2016, she is a postdoctoral research associate at Texas A&M University and uses data-driven modeling and optimization to plan refinery-petrochemical operations.

  3. 2016–2020

    Hybrid machine learning at Georgia Tech

    She joins Georgia Tech's School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering as an assistant professor in August 2016. In 2020, she receives an NSF CAREER Award for work that combines machine learning with chemical engineering principles and develops tools for process applications.

  4. 2023

    A process systems engineering paper

    In 2023, she coauthors the white paper “Machine learning in process systems engineering: Challenges and opportunities.” It distills a FIPSE 5 session into open problems and future directions for machine learning in molecular/material design, data analytics, optimization, and control.

  5. 2023

    CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award

    In August 2023, she receives AIChE's CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award, which recognizes contributions to the chemical engineering computing and systems technology literature.

  6. 2023

    Scialog adsorbent-degradation award

    In 2023, she joins Kyriakos Stylianou and Liang Feng on a Scialog: Negative Emissions Science team that receives a Collaborative Innovation Award for work on adsorbent degradation and techno-economic analysis.

  7. 2025

    Surrogate hybridization paper

    In 2025, she coauthors a paper on surrogate hybridization and adaptive sampling for simulation-based optimization.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor and lab PI

    As of October 2026, she is an associate professor and Robert L. Seldomridge Faculty Fellow in Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She is the PI of the Data-Driven Process Systems Engineering Lab, where researchers combine machine learning with chemical engineering fundamentals and develop hybrid models and optimization tools for carbon capture, sustainable energy, plastics and fertilizer recycling, and bioprocess modeling.

Career

  1. Since 2016Georgia Institute of TechnologyAssistant Professor
  2. 2014–2016Texas A&M UniversityPostdoctoral Research Associate
  3. 2012–2014Princeton UniversityPostdoctoral Research Associate

Education

  1. 2013Rutgers UniversityPhD
  2. 2008National Technical University of AthensBS

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Georgia Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Georgia Institute of Technology. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. People shaping AI work at a median of 3 organizations over a career: 3 for university starters and institute and lab starters, versus 2 for company startersIncludes Georgia Institute of Technology. Across 6,853 people shaping AI with a dated work role, we estimate a median of 3 parent organizations over a career (mean 3.6), comparing role groups, starting sectors and starting decades from the 1950s to 2020–2026.
  4. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Georgia Institute of Technology. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Fani Boukouvala — Education boukouvala.chbe.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Fani Boukouvala — Experience boukouvala.chbe.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Four ChBE Professors Win Prestigious NSF CAREER Awards coe.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Machine learning in process systems engineering: Challenges and opportunities | PI Research, TU Delft pi-research.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Dr. Boukouvala receives the CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award boukouvala.chbe.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Scialog: Negative Emissions Science Ends with Awards to 7 Teams – Research Corporation for Science Advancement rescorp.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Fani Boukouvala | School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering chbe.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.