Overview

Our research lies in the process systems engineering (PSE) field and at the interface of chemical engineering, applied mathematics, and data science. There are two intertwined aspects of the research carried out in our group. The first aspect includes developing and employing PSE techniques to discover advanced materials and pathways to produce electricity, fuels, and chemicals economically and sustainably. Second, we develop theory and algorithms to solve challenging application-driven optimization problems.
Current projects include:

  • • Multi-scale optimization of solar thermal energy systems
  • • Decarbonization of the Indian energy system
  • • Hyperparameter optimization of machine learning models
  • • Optimization theory and algorithms for large-scale nonconvex problems

Awards
  • Distinguished Graduate Research Award,Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University 2018
  • Finalist, CAST Directors' Student Presentation Award, AIChE 2018
  • Process Systems Engineering Young Researcher Award, CAST, AIChE 2018
  • Fellow, Academy of Future Faculty, Texas A&M University 2015
  • Undergraduate Research Award, IIT Bombay2012

Work Experience
  • Assistant Professor, IIT Roorkee, 2022-2023.

Recent Publications
  • X. Peng*, I. Bajaj*, M. Yao, T. W. Root, C. T. Maravelias, Solid-gas thermochemical energy storage strategies for concentrating solar power: optimization and system analysis, Energy Conversion and Management, 245, 114636. (2021)

  • H. Chang*, I. Bajaj*, A. H. Motagamwala, A. Somasundaram, G. W. Huber, C. T. Maravelias, J. A. Dumesic, Sustainable production of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural from glucose for process integration with high fructose corn syrup infrastructure., Green Chemistry, 23, 3277-3288. (2021)

  • I. Bajaj, M. M. F. Hasan, Global dynamic optimization using edge-concave underestimator., Journal of Global Optimization, 77, 487-512. (2020)

  • I. Bajaj, M. M. F. Hasan, Deterministic global derivative-free optimization of black-box problems with bounded Hessian., Optimization Letters, 14, 1011-1026. (2020)

  • I. Bajaj, M. M. F. Hasan, UNIPOPT: Univariate projection-based optimization without derivatives, Computers and Chemical Engineering, Vol 127, 71-87. (2019)

  • I. Bajaj, S. S. Iyer, M. M. F. Hasan, A trust region-based two phase algorithm for constrained black-box optimization with infeasible initial point,Computers and Chemical Engineering, Vol 116, 306-321. (2018)