FOPAM 2023 (CACHE Sponsored Conference)

FOPAM 2023: Process/product Analytics and Machine Learning today

AI and analytics-aided decision-making are becoming well established in the process industries, new tools and applications are appearing, and savvy users are a key to advancing them. Those were themes of the keynote message from Cenk Undey of Roche/Genentech, as well as the broad message of CACHE's second FOPAM conference on Foundations of Process/product Analytics and Machine learning  <https://fopam.cache.org>. The conference was held July 30 to August 3, 2023, at the University of California Davis.

Building on the successful FOPAM 2019 in Raleigh, NC, 85 participants heard talks and panel discussions from science/technology leaders, studied posters from other community members, and enjoyed many chances for one-to-one discussions with each other. A focused workshop preceded the conference, and a culminating session addressed education of students, educators, and the workforce on these topics.  

The participants were from process industries and software companies, plus university faculty members, post-docs, and graduate students. Partial financial aid for junior participants and general support was provided by the National Science Foundation, Aspen Technology, AVEVA, Dow, and Genentech. AIChE's CAST and CoMSEF divisions were also co-sponsors.

Organized lunchtime discussions allowed examination of companies' and organizations' commitments to professional diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Employer expectations of new graduates was another lunch-table topic.

CACHE expects to organize a third FOPAM in 2026, based on enthusiastic feedback from FOPAM 2023 and FOPAM 2019 before it. The FOPAM Chairs were Phil Westmoreland of North Carolina State University, Leo Chiang of Dow (Program) and Ahmet Palazoglu of UC Davis (Arrangements).