Eric Anderson

About

One area I focus on is building and validating models of chemical processes. Modern commercial software has made many parts of this task much easier, but proper use of commercial tools requires judgment about the inputs and the level of modeling detail, process-specific knowledge, and validation against real-world performance data.

Another area of interest is problem solving, particularly in the area of chemical production troubleshooting. I have experience identifying problems through statistics, isolating root causes, and providing innovative solutions. In many cases use of systematic tools (Six Sigma statistical analysis, Kepner-Tregoe root cause analysis, USIT or Triz inventive thinking) make this process easier to teach and apply.

My teaching focuses on integrating knowledge from previous courses into a coherent and usable structure. My favorite courses are capstone laboratory and design courses, which draw on prior engineering education in thermodynamics, transport phenomena, chemistry and unit operations. Ideally, my courses connect these fields to each other, test the 'book-learning' against the real world, and allow creative synthesis of ideas from these other courses in designing things that aren't real (yet).

Education

​B.S. ChE. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1979

​M.S. ChE. Practice, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984