Meet the new members of CACHE Executive Committee (ExCom)

CACHE Board of Trustees held elections during the Summer meeting to elect new members of the ExCom.  Mario Eden is the new President, Jeff Errington the new Vice-President, and Conchita Jimenez-Gonzalez the new Secretary.   Ed Maginn continues as Executive Director.  Below you will find short bios of the new ExCom members.
 

Mario Eden – President

Mario serves as the Dean of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering and holds the Joe T. & Billie Carole McMillan Endowed Chair at Auburn University, where he has been on the faculty since 2004 and has served as Dean since 2023.  Previously he served as Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering for almost 11 years.

Mario received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Technical University of Denmark, both in Chemical Engineering.  He has been an active member of the process systems engineering community for over 20 years, his main areas of expertise include process design, integration and optimization, as well as molecular synthesis and product design.  He has co-chaired two premier conferences in our field, i.e. the 2014 FOCAPD and the 13th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering conference (PSE 2018).  He has served as Past Chair, Chair, 1st Vice-Chair, 2nd Vice-Chair, and Director of the Computing and Systems Technology Division of AIChE and for 4th terms as a Trustee of Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE), where previously has served as Vice-President and Secretary.  Mario was recently appointed Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the AIChE Foundation and  currently serves on the editorial boards for Computers & Chemical Engineering and Process Integration & Optimization for Sustainability, among others.
 

Jeff Errington – Vice President

Jeff Errington is Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University at Buffalo. His research focuses on the development and application of atomistic molecular simulation methods to study the phase and interfacial behaviors of complex fluids. Errington joined the University at Buffalo in 2001 after receiving his BS in Chemical Engineering in 1995 from the University at Buffalo, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University in 1999, and subsequently studying as a post-doctoral fellow for two years in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Princeton University. From 2006-2014, he served as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Chemical Engineering program. From 2014 to 2023, Errington served as the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education within the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He was the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for 2023 and 2024 before taking on the role of Chair in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2025. Errington is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2003), the NYSTAR James D. Watson Investigator Award (2004), the CoMSEF Impact Award (2013), the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2016), and the UB Exceptional Scholar Award (Young Investigator, 2005; Sustained Achievement, 2014). He is a Trustee of CACHE (Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering) Foundation, member of the American Chemical Society, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, where he is an active member of the Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum (CoMSEF).
 

Conchita Jimenez-Gonzalez – Secretary

Concepción “Conchita” Jiménez-González is Vice-President, Head of R&D Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability at GSK, leading the global team that enables R&D to develop medicines and vaccines safely and sustainably. In GSK she has had a series of roles of increasing responsibility over 25 years. Prior to GSK she was an environmental engineer at GeoEnvironmental Consultants; professor, program manager, and project engineer at Monterrey Tech (Mexico); and visiting researcher at Pfizer and SmithKline Beecham. Conchita has co-authored two books and dozens of peer-reviewed publications in the areas of green chemistry, green engineering, and sustainability. She is also an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University (NCSU), teaching the graduate-level class “Green Chemical Engineering”. She has served in various professional boards and committees, including the CACHE Board of Trustees, Scientific Advisory Committee in Chemicals for the US EPA, the Editorial Advisory Board for the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia, the General Assembly of the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development, and the Advisory Committee of the Green Chemistry Teaching and Learning Community. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and an MBA from NCSU; an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Monterrey Tech; and a B.S. in Chemical and Industrial Engineering at the Chihuahua Institute of Technology, Mexico.