Ralph W. Pike is the Director of the Minerals Processing Research Division/Center for Energy Studies and is the Paul M. Horton Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at Louisiana State University (pike@lsu.edu) and previously was a research chemical engineer at Exxon in Baytown, Texas.  His degrees are in chemical engineering, doctorate, and bachelors from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

He is the author of textbooks on optimization for engineering systems and coauthor books on design and modeling of chemical processes and on computational transport phenomena. His research specialties are optimization theory and applications for the optimal design of engineering systems, on-line optimization of continuous processes, optimization of chemical production complexes, and related areas of resources management, sustainable development, and chemicals from biomass. Books that he has authored and co-authored are:

Ralph W. Pike, Continuous Renewable Energy Generation with Lithium-Ion Battery Storage on the Micro Grid, A Disruptive Technology, ISBN-10: 9798670042307, Kindle Direct Publishing ASIN: B08DSZ2YTH print edition, ASIN: B08P3X7KVM electronic edition, 187 pages (2020)

Ralph W. Pike, Essentials of Optimization for Chemical Engineering, Kindle Direct Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1645700968 ASIN: 1645700968 print edition, ASIN: B07ZWNFMWC e-book edition (2019).

Ralph W. Pike, Essentials of Economic Decision Analysis for Chemical Engineering, Title ID: 5287746 ISBN-13: 978-1507771723, print edition, ASIN: B00UH15GXS e-book edition, CreateSpace, Amazon.com (2015) and Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY (1985).

Ralph W. Pike, Optimization for Engineering Systems Revised, (Kindle Edition) ASIN: B00BF2TLXO Amazon.com (2013) and Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY (1985).

Debalina Sengupta and Ralph W. Pike, Chemicals from Biomass: Integrating Bioprocesses into Chemical Production Complexes for Sustainable Development, Taylor & Francis Publishing Company, Boca Raton, FL, (2012).

Richard C. Farmer, Ralph W. Pike, Gary C. Cheng, and Yen-Sen Chen, Computational Transport Phenomena for Engineering Analysis, Taylor & Francis Publishing Company, (2009).

Optimization Technologies, LLC is a non-profit company that develops methods and provides information on optimization technology that is used in chemical plants and petroleum refineries. This website includes research results and tutorials. Contact info@optimizeplants.com or Ralph W. Pike (pike@lsu.edu) for additional information.