Curriculum vitae

Current positions

2018, August 16th – Present

Associate Professor at Iowa State University, Department of Mechanical Engineering (Courtesy appointment in Chemical and Biological Engineering), Ames, IA, USA.

2020, March 19th – Present

Associate Director, Center for Multiphase Flow Research and Education, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.

Past positions

2012, August 16th – 2018, August 15th
Assistant Professor at Iowa State University, Department of Mechanical Engineering (Courtesy appointment in Chemical and Biological Engineering), Ames, IA, USA.

2008, January 7th – 2010, August 15th
Post-doctoral research associate at Iowa State University, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Ames, IA, USA. Adviser: Prof. Rodney O. Fox. Research topics: Uncertainty quantification in gas-particle flow simulations, Quadrature-based moment methods for gas-particle flows.

2010, September – December
Instructor of ChE 545 – Analytical and Numerical Methods in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State University.

2007, September – December
Teaching assistant of Transport Phenomena in the Department of Material Science and Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino.

2006, September – December
Teaching assistant of Transport Phenomena in the Department of Material Science and Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino.

2005, September – 2006, November
Consultant. Optimization of HDT Vicat – Haloxide for CEAST S.p.A.

2004, July 15th – 2005, December
Assistant researcher at Politecnico di Torino – Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science – Development of a new gas-liquid reactor in partnership with M&G – Mossi & Ghisolfi group.

2004, October – November
Consultant. Research activity for Cobarr S.p.A for the determination of the surface renewal time of a stirred gas-solid reactor using CFD codes.

2004, May
Research assistant at Politecnico di Torino – Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science – Modeling of circulating fluidized bed reactors.

Education

2008, April 3rd
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino on the CFD simulation of gas-solid flows. (Work period at Politecnico di Torino: 2005, January 1st – 2007, December 31st). Advisers: Prof. Giancarlo Baldi, Prof. Luca Marmo.

2007, January 17th – 19th
Excellence course of Politecnico di Torino Doctorate School. Writing to communicate science: a short course for doctoral students, held by Dr. Sarah Clark.

2006, July 3rd – 7th
Course on Computational Models for Turbulent Multiphase Reacting Flows, held at CISM (Udine) and coordinated by Prof. D. Marchisio and R. Fox.

2006, March 6th – 9th
Excellence course of Politecnico di Torino Doctorate School. Nanoparticles: synthesis and characterization, organized by Dr. P. Bowen, Dr. V. Buscaglia, Prof. B. Fubini, Dr. D. Marchisio, Prof. L. Montanaro, Prof. M. Vanni.

2006 February 28th – March 1st
FLUENT base course, held at Politecnico di Torino by FLUENT Italia.

2005, September 12th – 16th
IUTAM School on Dispersion of Particles in Turbulent Flows, held at CISM and coordinated by Prof. M. Reeks and Prof. A. Soldati.

2005, April 4th – 8th
GRICU School on Mathematical Method for Chemical Engineering, held at the University of Bologna and coordinated by Prof. P. L. Maffettone and Prof. F. Doghieri.

2004, March
Master degree in Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino, 110/110 cum laude, Thesis: Simulation of circulating fluidised bed reactors with a CFD code. (Original title: Simulazione di reattori a letto fluidizzato a ricircolo con codice CFD). Advisers: Prof. Giancarlo Baldi, Prof. Luca Marmo.

1998, March
Preliminary English Test, University of Cambridge, Pass with merit.

1997, July
Maturità scientifica at Liceo Scientifico G. Parodi of Acqui Terme, 60/60.

Publications,  Conferences, Talks, Seminars

For un updated list see here.

For a list of publications tracked on Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9368-9393

Languages

Italian: Mother tongue

English: Proficient (reading and writing)

Technical skills and competences

Operating systems: Microsoft Windows®, Linux (SuSE®, RedHat®)

Office software: Microsoft Office®, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, LaTeX

Programming languages: C/C++, Fortran 90, C#

Technical software: Ansys FLUENT®, AutoCAD®, MATLAB®, OpenFOAM®.

Memberships

  • Member of AIChE – American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
  • Member of APS – American Physical Society.

Other products and activities

  • Software products and involvement in open-source projects
    • Lead developer and principal investigator of OpenQBMM (on GitHub)
    • Implemented and maintaining dynamic Smagorinsky model (on GitHub) for OpenFOAM
    • Creator of GeekoCFD, a linux distribution based on openSUSE which provides open-source tools for computational fluid dynamics (discontinued).
    • Coordinator of the openSUSE Italian translation team for openSUSE 10.3 and openSUSE 11.0.
  • Reviewing activity
    • See verified reviewer record on Publons: publons.com/a/1185723/ (Complete from 2016 on. Some reviews and journals of previous years are missing because the corresponding “thank you” email from the publisher was lost):
    • Before 2016:
      • AIChE Journal, Reviewer, 2009, 2011 – 2012, 2014 – 2016.
      • Advanced Powder Technology, Reviewer, 2012 – 2013, 2015.
      • ASME Journal, Reviewer, 2012, 2014 – 2015.
      • Atmospheric Environment, 2014
      • Chemical Engineering Journal, 2012, 2016.
      • Chemical Engineering Science, Reviewer, 2009 – 2011, 2013 – 2016.
      • Computers and Chemical Engineering, Reviewer, 2011, 2014.
      • Computers and Fluids, Reviewer, 2009, 2013, 2015.
      • Computers and Mathematics with Applications, Reviewer, 2012 – 2013.
      • Computer Physics Communications, Reviewer, 2011, 2013.
      • Environmental Engineering and Management Journal, Reviewer, 2012.
      • Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, Reviewer, 2010 – 2014, 2016.
      • International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering, Reviewer, 2009.
      • International Journal of Multiphase Flow, Reviewer, 2013 – 2016.
      • International Journal of Numerical Methods in Fluids, 2014.
      • Journal of Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineering, 2014.
      • Polymers, 2015 – 2016.
      • Powder Technology, Reviewer, 2010, 2012, 2015 – 2016.
  • Reviewer for the following funding agencies
    • European Research Council, European Union, Proposal reviewer, 2017, 2020.
    • Qatar National Research Fund, Proposal reviewer, 2016.
    • FWO Research Foundation – Flanders (Belgium), Proposal reviewer, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018.
    • LabEx Tec 21 – The French National Research Agency, Proposal reviewer, 2018.
    • National Science Foundation
      • ACI, Panel reviewer, Oct. 2014, May 2016.
      • CBET, Panel reviewer, Jan. 2015, Jan 2016, 2018, 2019.
      • CBET, Ad-hoc proposal reviewer, Mar. 2016, May 2016, 2018.
      • OCE-BSF, Ad-hoc proposal reviewer, October 2019.
      • Physics, Ad-hoc proposal reviewer, November 2020.
    • National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) – Proposal reviewer – Feb. 2014, July 2014, June 2019 (1).
    • University of Texas S. Antonio – Department of Defense Basic Research Program for HBCU/MI, Proposal reviewer, 2019.

Alberto Passalacqua