In nature, nothing is ever truly wasted. The byproduct of one ecological system supports and sustains another, and so on and so forth. Washington State University Tri-Cities Assistant Professor Tapajyoti “TJ” Ghosh, who joined the Institute for Northwest Energy Futures last May as a faculty fellow, believes that industrial systems can take a page from nature’s book.
Ghosh earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Jadavpur University in India and a Ph.D. in the same field from Ohio State University.
“[My] research was the intersection of chemical engineering process design and sustainability analytics, trying to combine the field of process systems engineering with industrial ecology — two separate disciplines — into one Ph.D.,” Ghosh said.
After finishing his degree at OSU, Ghosh took a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While there, he continued to research industrial ecology and circular economy, which describes a model whereby waste from one industrial process becomes the raw material or fuel for another industrial process. The goal of industrial ecology is to lessen the amount of waste that occurs within the industrial process by utilizing as much of a material as possible, instead of merely discarding it.
From there, Ghosh went on to become a research scientist at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, where he focused his attention even further on industrial ecology.
Today, Ghosh is interested in the qualitative aspects of engineering, not just the quantitative aspects, though he says both are needed. Whereas things like numerical data and analysis are important and useful for discovering insights and phenomena into how a system works, he said that being able to understand specific case studies in the engineering field is a key component to understanding how to solve problems.
“[Qualitative research] is important because industrial ecology is not always a quantitative science. It is very difficult to quantify when you’re working at an ecosystem scale or at a planetary scale,” Ghosh said. “Qualitative research is about looking at examples of successes and failures and understanding why it was a success and why it was a failure.”
Ghosh was drawn to INEF because of the shared research vision he shares with the institute, which seeks to develop long-term solutions to energy-related issues through an integrated systems approach and perspective.
“There was a huge amount of overlap and connection between the mission of INEF and my background,” Ghosh said, noting that INEF’s strong connections to national lab research was another positive factor.
Although Ghosh is new to INEF, he has been off to a productive start, setting up his labs, recruiting potential Ph.D. students, and preparing to teach Chemical Engineering 441: Process Controls in the fall.
Over the summer, Ghosh mentored three INEF student interns — Olivia Kanoff, Madison Manley, and Hayley Mendoza — all three of whom are working on projects related to power generation.
“Two of them are nuclear-oriented projects, and one of them is an assessment for an electricity generation project,” Ghosh said.
Ghosh is planning to have his research group focus on the integration of chemical engineering topics and process systems in his industrial ecology work. His previous work within the chemical engineering discipline was largely numbers based, and Ghosh is looking to apply that same level of quantification to the industrial ecology field.
“I am planning to have my research group focus on the integration of process systems in engineering and industrial ecology, something that I used to do during my Ph.D. but didn’t do too much at the national lab,” Ghosh said. “How can I bring quantification from chemical engineering to industrial ecology and apply that to relevant energy challenges in the Pacific Northwest?”