Dr Maria Papathanasiou
Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
Imperial College London
Dr Maria Papathanasiou is an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London. Dr Papathanasiou leads the Life Science and Process Systems Engineering lab, focusing on the development of digital twins and control methodologies for process understanding, optimisation and automation. Applications include personalised therapies, (bio-) pharmaceuticals, energy & food systems engineering. She has received her 5-year Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and her MSc and PhD degrees in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. Prior to her permanent appointment with Imperial College London, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering and the Energy Institute at Texas A&M University.
Dr Papathanasiou’s research activities are supported by EPSRC, UKRI, as well as industrial partnerships with GSK, Pall Biologics, AstraZeneca, TrakCel Lt and others. Recent influential contributions include the development of supply chain models to address challenges related to efficient and speedy vaccine delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Outcomes of this work have contributed to Royal Society’s DELVE report on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development and implementation. Dr Papathanasiou & collaborators have been awarded IChemE’s Global Team Award and the Imperial College President’s Awards for Excellence in Research (2021). Dr Papathanasiou has co-authored over 35 full length and peer-reviewed conference publications and 3 book chapters that include contributions to Scientific Reports Nature, AIChE Journal and Computers and Chemical Engineering. She has strong international representation to scientific and industrial conferences with over 40 oral presentations, including invited talks.
Dr Papathanasiou serves as Social Media Chair for AIChE’s CAST Division and was recently elected as the 2025 Programming Coordinator for CAST’s Area 10E Information Management and Intelligent Systems. Dr Papathanasiou is the Interim Secretary of IChemE’s Computer Aided Process Engineering Special Interest Group. She is a member of EPSRC’s Early Career Researcher Forum, and she is actively involved in Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives through EPSRC-UKRI cross-Strategic Advisory Teams EDI committee.
Dr Papathanasiou is a recipient of EPSRC's New Investigator Award (2022) totalling > £500k, focusing on the development of a systematic framework and software platform to enable integrated process design, optimisation and control in bioprocesses. She has been recently awarded IChemE's Junior Sargent Medal for her pioneering work and research program on personalised healthcare systems engineering and bioprocess optimisation and model-based control.
Team
Postdoctoral Researchers
Andrea Galeazzi
Research Associate
Dr Galeazzi specialises in data driven applications for process monitoring and design. His main area of expertise is on the development of machine learning surrogate models for process performance prediction and optimisation. His current research revolves around integrating data-driven strategies for design space identification and control in bio-pharmaceutical processes.
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Beatriz Felices Rando
Research Associate
Dr. Felices' interests lie in the biotechnology sector, with a research-focus on techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) of biomanufacturing processes. Her work is applied to the biopharmaceutical and food industries, supporting the development of sustainable and cost-effective production strategies.
Iraj Ghofrani
Research Associate
Dr. Ghofrani’s research focuses on developing software tools that translate data-driven methods into practical solutions for process systems. He combines expertise in machine learning and process systems engineering to advance smarter strategies for process design, analysis, and optimization. His current work applies design space identification as a foundation for the digitalization of biopharmaceutical processes.
PhD Students
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Foteini Michalopoulou
PhD student (Year 4)
Development of advanced control strategies of industrial processes
Niki Triantafyllou
PhD student (Year 3)
Machine learning for combinatorial optimisation in multi-scale supply chains
Daniele Pessina
PhD student (Year 3)
A hybrid in silico/in vitro approach for integrated design and optimisation of large-molecule crystallisation
Alexandros Makrypidis
PhD student (Year 3)
Computational modelling of the human gastric process for the design of optimised foods
George Spencer
PhD student (Year 1)
Hybrid modelling for end-to-end bioprocess optimisation
Eleni Chalasti
PhD student (Year 1)
Cost- and resource- effective regional deployment of Direct Air Capture in the United Kingdom
Alex Glover
PhD student (Year 1)
Design and optimisation of adsorption-based CO2 capture systems under variable feed conditions
Haditya Kukuh Purwanto
PhD student (Year 1)
Multiparametric programming for separation process design
Previous Members
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Steven Sachio
PhD Student
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Miriam Sarkis
PhD Student
Current Position: PDRA at Texas A&M
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Paulina Quintanilla
Postdoctoral Researcher
Current Position: Assistant Professor at UCL
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Thomas Kavanagh