Chemical Engineer (Process Development/Research & Development)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES

Operating in industrial and research environments

Designing experiments and statistical analysis of data

Polymer synthesis, molecular biology, biochemistry, and biomass-degrading enzymes

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

MS Chemical Engineering, IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2007

Teaching Assistant for Chemical Engineering Senior Design Course (Aspen HYSYS)

BS Chemical Engineering, IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2004

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Biochemical Engineer, 2008 – Present

AGRIVIDA

Led the laboratory automation team to further research and development at a biotechnology startup company

• Started and directed all laboratory automation activities at Agrivida (resulting in ‘Top Performer’ and ‘Exceeds Expectations’ evaluations for 2009 and 2010)

• Dramatically improved the enzyme development research pipeline

• 4-fold increase in project completion rates

• ~5k-fold increase in assay capacity compared to pre-automation capabilities (2.5M assays run in 2010)

• Developed and validated novel adaptations of assays for high-throughput screening (HTS)

• Mined data for systematic issues and incorporated quality control measures

• Drove capital expansions ($600k in new equipment, a 6-fold increase) and negotiated contracts with vendors

• Programmed automation methods to be both streamlined for execution of standard protocols and easily customizable for non-standard experiments (an essential design feature to meet researchers’ needs)

• Documented standard operating protocols (SOP), trained other researchers, and provided support to 6 PI’s

• Hired and supervised another researcher and actively assisted in other hiring processes

Fermentation Engineer, 2007 – 2008

CARGILL

Responsibilities that supported operations at an industrial-scale fermentation facility

• Increased process stability through capital project equipment installation (RCA, MOC, PHA, WBS tracking)

• Operated the DCS control system and scheduled semi-batch processes in a continuous production pipeline

• Led shift exchanges, issued work permits and verified LOTO, monitored the process health (microscopy, HPLC, GC, YSI)

Chemical Engineering Co-op, Fall 2002 & Fall 2003

LYONDELL / EQUISTAR CHEMICAL

Projects that supported operations at a petrochemical facility (ethylene refinery & low density polymerization unit)

• Created steam-centric PFDs and added detail to over 100 controlled documents (P&IDs)

• Monitored acetylene converter catalyst and heat exchangers performance to ensure cost-effective operation

• Optimized the process sampling schedule - resulting in laboratory cost savings ($50k/y)

Laboratory Assistant, 2000 – 2001

LOPAREX

Projects that supported product development and pilot plant operations for release liners

• Tested material properties of papers, films, silicone chemistries (TAPPI, UV-VIS, surface properties)

COMPUTER SKILLS

Highly-skilled with Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic macros, Office applications, Windows, VBScript

Comfortable with Aspen HYSYS, HTML, JMP, DeltaV, PI Historian, Fortran, Linux, Mac OS X, command-line

PUBLICATIONS

Shilling T., Apgar J., Ekborg N., Lazar G., Ross M., Shen B., Sun X., de la Vega H., Zuo X., Raab R. M. (2010) “Solid Substrate Based High-Throughput Enzyme Assays for Directed Evolution of Cellulases and Xylanases”. Poster at ALA’10.

Warner C., Hoy J., Shilling T., Linnen M., Ginder N., Ford C., Honzatko R., Reilly P. (2010) “Tertiary Structure and Characterization of a Glycoside Hydrolase Family 44 Endoglucanase from Clostridium acetobutylicum” Applied and Environmental Microbiology 76: 338-346. (Publication included work completed for MS Thesis at Iowa State University).

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