Joaquin Rodriguez

Joaquin Rodriguez has been an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh since 2018. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Universidad Simon Bolivar (Caracas, Venezuela), and the MSc. and PhD degrees in the same discipline from the University of Pittsburgh. He developed his expertise in thermal cracking processes and advanced materials (needle coke, carbon fibers) from oil residues, and became a technology business leader for specialty petroleum products at the Research Center of Petroleos de Venezuela PDVSA (1983-1998). He later joined the founding team of Universidad Monteavila (Caracas, Venezuela) (1998—2018), a private institution with degrees in Law, Education, Business, and Mass Media. He became the Chancellor of this university for ten years (2005-2015), the President of the Center for Higher Studies (2015-2018), and taught courses on the humanities. After joining the faculty at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Pittsburgh, he has been teaching Pillar courses on Reactive Process Engineering, Process Control, Process Control Laboratory, and Process Design (capstone course). He also developed a new elective course on “green chemical engineering and sustainability.” In addition to technical courses, his service extends to engineering education, curriculum development, outreach programs, global awareness, sustainability, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Joaquin and his wife Rosanna have been married since 1985, have three sons and one daughter (three of them are Pitt alumni), and five grandkids.