Tom English is a Principal Engineer for Rhodia where he is responsible for the scale-up of automobile catalyst supports, manages pilot plant operation, and investigates process innovations for the business unit.  Prior to working for Rhodia, Tom worked for National Starch and Chemical for three years - first as an Engineering Associate then Senior Engineering Associate in the Food Ingredients division. While at National, Tom specialized in starch heat treatment technology, process innovation, and applied fundamental chemical engineering principles to improve processes.

He has extensive training and experience in developing mathematical models and simulations of physical phenomena.  Such phenomena include polymerization reactors, pulp digesters, distillation columns, fluidized bed reactors, and discrete event processes.  He is also trained in control theory, transport phenomena, numerical methods, and optimization. Click here to see his resume

He earned his Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Pennsylvania under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Hammer.  Tom's dissertation research developed simulation techniques that model nanoparticles adhering to surfaces.  A particular application of such a simulation is modeling viruses attaching to host cells.  Click here for a movie (1.5mb) of a simulation of a virus attaching to a cell. The ball represents the virus. The lines represent bonds between the virus and cell. The cell is represented as a plane. In this simulation the cellular receptors are free to diffuse within the cellular membrane. Each frame of the movie is 1 μs simulated time.  This research has been published in peer reviewed journals and presented at national scientific meetings (see below).

He also holds masters in chemical engineering and systems engineering (which includes coursework from the Wharton School of Business) from the University of Pennsylvania, a bachelors in chemical engineering with minors in mathematics and history from the University of Delaware, and an associates degree in business from the Community College of Philadelphia.  While at the University of Delaware, Tom worked on two research projects for Dr. P. S. Dhurjati dealing with fault detection and diagnosis.  His other industrial experience includes a summer operating pilot plants for UOP (Universal Oil Products) in Des Plaines, Illinois;  and a summer modeling sulfur dioxide emissions from the Delaware City Refinery in Delaware City, Delaware.

In his spare time, he plays bass in the band Doublehorse!.


PUBLICATIONS

Journal Articles

English, T.J., and D.A. Hammer "Brownian Adhesive Dynamics (BRAD) for Simulating the Receptor-Mediated Binding of Viruses", Biophysical Journal 86:3359-3372 (2004).

English, T.J., and D.A. Hammer "The Effect of Cellular Receptor Diffusion for Receptor-Mediated Viral Binding using Brownian Adhesive Dynamics (BRAD) Simulations", Biophysical Journal 88:1666-1675 (2005).

Conference Proceedings

English, T.J., L. Kaiser, F. J. Doyle, and P.S. Dhurjati "Analysis of Post-Upset Plant Data for Fault Detection", On-Line Fault Detection and Supervision in the Chemical Process Industries, 1998: Proceedings of the 3rd IFAC Workshop, Ifp, Solaize (Lyon), France, 4-5 June 1998 p. 353-358

Dufour, P., S. Bhartiya, T. J. English, E. P. Gatzke, P. S. Dhurjati, and F. J. Doyle III "Fault Detection in a Continuous Pulp Digester" On-Line Fault Detection and Supervision in the Chemical Process Industries, 2001: Proceedings of the 4th IFAC Workshop, Jejudo Island, Korea, 7-8 June 2001 p. 93-98

English, T.J., and D. A. Hammer "Brownian Adhesion Dynamic Simulations Study of HIV Docking on CD4 Cells", AIChE Bioinformatics, Proteomics, and Functional Genomics Conference Proceedings: AIChE Annual Meeting, November 3-8, 2002, Indianapolis, Indiana p. 163

English, T.J., and D. A. Hammer "HIV Viral Docking: Model Predictions for Bond Number and Trajectory", IEEE 29th Annual Northeast Bioengineering Conference, March 22-23, 2003, Newark, New Jersey p. 156-157

Hammer, D. A., and T. J. English "Simulations of Viral Binding Using Brownian Adhesive Dynamics", 225th ACS National Meeting, March 23-27, 2003, New Orleans, Louisiana

Patents

applications

English, T.J., and K. Shah "Thermally Inhibited Polysaccharides and Process of Preparing"

English, T.J., A. Souvaliotis, and M. Shah "Continuous Fluid Bed Reactor"

Invited talks

"Adapting to Industry from Academia" Rutgers Omega Chi Epsilon induction dinner April 28th, 2006.

Albums

Position Yourself for the Future Doublehorse! July 21, 2006

To Tom's Personal Page

This site has been visited  times since July 19th 2004.

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