Venkat Venkatasubramanian Elected To National Academy of Engineering
Photo: Columbia University
India-West News Desk
NEW YORK, NY – Venkat Venkatasubramanian, the Samuel Ruben-Peter G. Viele Professor of Engineering at Columbia University, has been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest honors in the field. Recognized for his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence applications in process safety and pharmaceutical manufacturing, Venkatasubramanian joins a distinguished cohort of 128 new members and 22 international members announced on February 11. The formal induction will take place at the NAE’s Annual Meeting on October 5.
Columbia Engineering Dean Shih-Fu Chang hailed Venkatasubramanian as a “pioneer” in his field, emphasizing his transformative contributions to AI and engineering systems.
An internationally recognized authority in chemical and pharmaceutical engineering, Venkatasubramanian has been at the forefront of developing AI-based methods for process fault diagnosis, safety, and materials design. His early research anticipated key advancements now widely adopted in the industry. His 2003 papers on process fault diagnosis remain among the most cited in Computers & Chemical Engineering, with over 8,000 citations. His 2019 work on AI applications in chemical engineering is the most-referenced paper in the AIChE Journal in the last two decades.
Beyond engineering, Venkatasubramanian has explored economic and social systems, authoring How Much Inequality is Fair? Mathematical Principles of a Moral, Optimal, and Stable Capitalist Society (2017).
A distinguished academic, he received the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2009 and was named an AIChE Fellow in 2011. In 2024, he was awarded AIChE’s prestigious William H. Walker Award for his pioneering AI contributions.
Venkatasubramanian earned his BS in chemical engineering from the University of Madras, an MS in physics from Vanderbilt University, and a PhD in chemical engineering from Cornell University. Before joining Columbia in 2012, he taught at Purdue University, where he won the Norris Shreve Prize for outstanding teaching three times.
