Meet our People

Stephen E. Zitney
Director, AVESTAR™ Center
U.S. Department of Energy
National Energy Technology Laboratory

Dr. Zitney serves as Director for the AVESTAR™ Center and also directs Process & Dynamic Systems Research under NETL's Regional University Alliance (NETL-RUA). He has over 20 years experience in process systems engineering R&D, with a strong emphasis in the areas of steady-state and dynamic process simulation and optimization; real-time operator training systems (OTS) and 3D virtual immersive training systems (ITS); process/equipment co-simulation and computational fluid dynamics (CFD); and advanced numerical methods and high-performance computing. 

Before joining NETL in 2004, Dr. Zitney held senior consulting and R&D management positions at Fluent, a leading provider of CFD software, Aspen Technology, a major supplier of process simulation software, and Cray Research, a leading provider of supercomputing tools to the process industries.  He received M.S./Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. 

Dr. Zitney has authored and co-authored over 80 publications, 120 conference presentations, and 50 invited presentations in process systems engineering.  He is currently a Trustee of the CACHE Corporation, member of the West Virginia Academy of Science, and an active member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) including Meeting Programming Co-Chair for the 2012 AIChE Annual Meeting to be held in Pittsburgh, PA.  He has also chaired and co-chaired numerous technical conference sessions and served as the Director of AIChE's Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division.  In addition, Dr. Zitney is the winner of numerous awards including four prestigious R&D100 Awards and seven Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Awards for Excellence in Technology Transfer. 

Photo courtesy of WVU

Professor Turton serves as the manager of the AVESTAR Center at the National Research Center for Coal and Energy at West Virginia University (WVU).  He has extensive experience in the design and simulation of chemical processes and has taught the senior design course at WVU for the past 25 years.  His research interests are in the static and dynamic simulation of energy generating processes, the control of such processes, and in design education.
Professor Turton has over 70 peer reviewed publications, over a hundred presentations at nation and international conferences, is the co-author of 4 book chapters and is the lead author of the design text entitled Analysis, Synthesis and Design of Chemical Processes published by Pearson. Prior to joining WVU, he spent 5 years in the design and construction industry in the UK and US.

George S. Darakos
Business Manager, AVESTAR™ Center
U.S. Department of Energy
National Energy Technology Laboratory

Mr. Darakos serves as a Business Outreach Manager at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in the Office of Research and Development (ORD).  As such, Mr. Darakos acts as the AVESTAR™ Center’s Business Manager.  He brings over 15 years of professional experience in project management, engineering, business and economic development.  Prior to starting his current role, Mr. Darakos was a Project Manager for DOE’s State Energy Program (SEP), responsible for over $200 million in funding for the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in the eastern United States. 

He earned his undergraduate Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering and Master of Business Administration (MBA), both from the University of Pittsburgh. 

Photo courtesy of WVU

Professor Bhattacharyya has been actively involved in the development of the AVESTAR™ Center at the National Research Center for Coal and Energy at West Virginia University (WVU) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Morgantown.  His research interests are in steady-state and dynamic simulation, techno-economic optimization, reduced order modeling, advanced process control, state estimation, fault diagnosis, and sensor placement.  He is currently focused on various energy generating and associated processes such as integrated gasification combined cycles (IGCC), sub-critical and super-critical pulverized coal (PC) plants, bio-gasification, pre-combustion and post-combustion CO₂ capture, fuel cells (PEMFC and SOFC, in particular), and fuel cell-gas turbine hybrid systems.

Dr. Bhattacharyya received B. E. degree from National Institute of Technology (NIT), Durgapur, India in 1993 and joined a petroleum refinery in India.  He spent more than 11 years in the refinery in various capacities before moving to academia in 2005. He graduated with Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY in 2008 and joined WVU. Professor Bhattacharyya has authored and co-authored over 15 peer reviewed publications and over 40 conference presentations.

Mr. Liese participated in design review and factory acceptance testing activities on the IGCC dynamic simulator with emphasis on the combined cycle operations. He is currently leading efforts to develop a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) dynamic simulator. His previous research has focused on the steady-state and dynamic modeling of fuel cell and gas turbine hybrid systems, including real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulations.  Mr. Liese received his BS. degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Purdue University and M.S. degree from West Virginia University in Mechanical Engineering. He has worked at NETL since 1991.

Priyadarshi Mahapatra
Research Engineer, AVESTAR™ Center
Global Management & Operations Services Group
URS Corporation

Dr. Mahapatra has five years of research experience in areas of process control, modeling & simulation of process engineering involved systems. Over the years he has gained expertise in dynamic modeling of various Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) process units including coal-gasification technologies, heat-exchanger networks, air-separation, power generation and energy-integrated systems. He has extensive control engineering and design experience including model predictive control (MPC), system identification, dynamic optimization, plantwide control and multiscale systems.

He received Ph.D. degree in Chemical & Biological Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY; an M.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India and a B.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. He has authored numerous conferences/publications in the areas of dynamic modeling, design and advanced process control of IGCC power plants and its sub-processes. He is an active member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) including the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division.

Dr. Mahapatra is currently involved in research activities centered around AVESTAR's underlying dynamic model. One of these activities is being geared towards improving simulator's load-following ramp-rates by implementing various advanced process control (APC) methodologies.

Terry E. Jordan Jr.
Computer Engineer, AVESTAR™ Center
U.S. Department of Energy
National Energy Technology Laboratory

Mr. Jordan provides technical consultation and support for 3D virtual immersive environments and participates in the design and performance review activities for AVESTAR’s Immersive Training Systems (ITSs).  His research interests include coupling process simulation with immersive environments, scientific simulation and visualization, and custom software development in support of the Office of Research and Development's Computational Science Division.

He received his B.S. degree in Computer Engineering and his B.S. degree in Computer Science from West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV.  He has been with NETL since 2000.

Mr. Jordan is the recipient of two prestigious R&D100 Awards as well as a Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer.