MURDOCH University has wooed Dr Srinivas Shastri back onto campus.

Dr Shastri, who was the second PhD graduate from the Rockingham campus, has recently returned to join the research staff of the newly established Centre for Intelligent Process Operations Management (IPOM).

Dr Shastri’s current research has deviated slightly from his original field of modelling complex chemical engineering problems.

He is now applying artificial intelligence technology to process engineering to improve the performance and safety levels of mining process plants.

“In plants there are many conditions which can induce a fault alarm, indicating a potential safety risk or loss of profit,” he said.

“The system that we are developing will ease the burden of alarm management for process technicians by constantly monitoring and predicting faults.”

Dr Shastri said cutting edge technologies such as these are becoming more significant in the process industry.

After two years working in Singapore on commercial research between industry and the National University of Singapore, Dr Shastri jumped at the chance to work at IPOM, a research collaboration between Murdoch University and Curtin University.

He is part of the Murdoch group within the School of Engineering, which comprises the largest group of research staff focused on process systems engineering in Australia.

IPOM researchers apply techniques used in process control and intelligent pattern recognition/machine learning to solve complex problems in the process industry.

“It was an honour to be asked to return to the university,” said Dr Shastri, who is a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer in thermodynamics.

After schooling and undergraduate study in India, Dr Shastri worked as a process engineer for a consultancy group before furthering his studies. He started his PhD at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand before moving to Murdoch in 1997.