Gavin Towler is the Corporate Vice President and Chief Scientist of Sustainable Technologies for Honeywell, with broad technical accountability across Honeywell for driving thought leadership in the field. Previously, Dr. Tower served as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Honeywell UOP and of Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies. He has 30 years of diverse experience in process and product design in the chemicals and fuels industries and has 77 US patents. His research focuses on the application of reaction modeling, process simulation, economic analysis and optimization to chemical process design, with particular focus on conversion of petroleum, natural gas and renewable feedstocks into fuels and basic petrochemicals. He has managed research in catalysis, reaction engineering, adsorptive separations and zeolite and membrane materials, and has developed methods for research portfolio management and technology scale-up and commercialization. He is co-author of “Chemical Engineering Design”, a textbook on process design, and is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University and the National University of Singapore, where he helps teach the senior design classes. Dr. Towler’s teaching focuses on chemical process and plant design, process economics and introducing design and innovation skills at all levels of the K-PhD curriculum. Dr. Towler is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers as well as a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in chemical engineering from Cambridge University and a doctorate from U.C. Berkeley. Dr. Towler was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering in 2015 for process designs for commercial petrochemicals and for leadership in refining and chemical research. 

Title: Accelerating Sustainability

Abstract: The grand challenge of climate change creates a need for every industry to think differently and implement new technologies to reduce the generation of greenhouse gas emissions. As a supplier of measurement, automation, digitization, aerospace and chemical processing technologies, Honeywell is working across the transport, buildings and industrial sectors to deploy new technologies that will help our customers advance on their path to net zero. The presentation will give an overview of the challenge we face and highlight key technologies that are now being deployed at scale that can help accelerate our progress to sustainability.