Alexandre C. Dimian has been Associate Professor for Process Design and Integration at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, since 1993. He wrote his PhD thesis in chemical engineering at the Technical University of Bucharest, Romania, and TU Hanover, Germany. He worked as a consultant for computer applications in process industries for 12 years, has realized numerous industrial projects, and has more than 100 refereed scientific papers as well as five books and three patents to his name. His research interests focus on the computer-aided design of chemical processes, and, more recently, on biofuels and biorefinery applications.