Ana Inés Torres
Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering
Ana Inés Torres is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on sustainability and process systems engineering as applied to clean and sustainable energy. Torres earned her B.S. in Chemistry in 2003 and a diploma in Chemical Engineering in 2005, both from the Universidad de la República Oriental del Uruguay. In 2013, after two years of industrial experience, she earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. She completed her postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2014.
Most recently, Torres served as an adjunct professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Universidad de la República, Montevideo, in Uruguay. She has been invited to speak at many universities and conferences and was a keynote speaker at the Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering Incorporating the 68th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference in 2018. She also served as a keynote at the “Unprecedented” Webinar Series on chemical innovation to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals in 2021. With experience as both an editor and reviewer, Torres has contributed to many journals, including Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy (Springer) and Computational Methods in Chemical Engineering (Frontier), among others.
Chemical Engineering and the Circular Economy
CMU Energy Research Summit Power Talk
Education
2013 Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota
2005 Diploma Chemical Engineering, Universidad de la República Oriental del Uruguay
2003 BS Chemistry,, Universidad de la República Oriental del Uruguay
Media mentions
Chemical Engineering
Optimizing the recovery of rare earth elements
In response to increasing demand for rare earth elements, Ana Torres is modeling rare earth recovery systems to design processes that will be environmentally friendly and economically competitive.
Chemical Engineering
Circular economy project brings seniors full circle
Chemical engineering seniors create a conceptual design and economic evaluation for a process to chemically recycle plastic.
Chemical Engineering
Scott Institute announces 2025 seed grant winners
This year’s seed awards will help grow research in clean hydrogen production, AI hardware efficiency, and decarbonizing transportation.
Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation
Scott Institute announces 2025 seed grant winners
This year’s seed awards will help grow research in clean hydrogen production, AI hardware efficiency, and decarbonizing transportation.
Engineering and Public Policy
Scott Institute announces 2025 seed grant winners
This year’s seed awards will help grow research in clean hydrogen production, AI hardware efficiency, and decarbonizing transportation.
CMU Engineering
Interdisciplinary team partners to develop advanced alloys
Materials science and engineering and chemical engineering faculty will collaborate on projects supported by the Naval Nuclear Laboratory to create additively manufactured structural alloys that can sustain extreme environments.
Chemical Engineering
Student spotlight: Victor Soria
Through the Fulbright program, master’s student Victor Soria is preparing to serve as a policy liaison between the US and Europe, with a focus on sustainable aviation fuels.
CMU Engineering
Torres awarded NSF CAREER award
Chemical Engineering’s Ana Inés Torres was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER award for her research in circular economies.
PASA 2023
Chemical Engineering faculty featured at PASI 2023
ChemE’s Larry Biegler, Ignacio Grossmann, Carl Laird, and Ana Torres served as instructors and speakers during a four-day intensive course hosted by the Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute on Optimization and Data Science for Net-Zero Carbon and Sustainability (PASI) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
CMU Engineering
A framework to advance green-hydrogen production
Researchers invent an all-encompassing optimization framework to design green-hydrogen production processes.
Chemical Engineering Research and Design
Torres featured in “Women in Chemical Engineering” special issue
ChemE's Ana Inés Torres was recognized as one of the top women researchers across the globe by Chemical Engineering Research and Design. Her paper on a superstructure-based optimization framework to design hydrogen production processes was published in the "Women in Chemical Engineering" special issue.