Education:
- MS & PhD (Environmental Engineering), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA, 2023
- BS (Chemical Engineering), Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, 2016
Research Interests:
- Process systems engineering
- Process intensification and advanced separations
- Techno-economic analysis & life cycle assessment
- Biomanufacturing & biorefining
- Waste valorization
Selected Publications
- Cortés-Peña, Y. R.; Zavala, V. M. Phenomena-Based Graph Representations and Applications to Chemical Process Simulation. Computers & Chemical Engineering 2026, 213, 109756. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2026.109756.
- Perkovich, P. M.; Cortés-Peña, Y. R.; Baerwald, J. J.; Graupmann, T. H.; Chavkin, T. A.; Mishra, S.; Cordell, W. T.; Zavala, V. M.; Pfleger, B. F. Demonstration and Technoeconomic Analysis of Dodecanol Production from Acetate Using Metabolically Engineered Escherichia Coli. Metabolic Engineering 2026, 93, 243–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymben.2025.10.007.
- Cortés-Peña, Y. R.; Woodruff, W.; Banerjee, S.; Li, Y.; Singh, V.; Rao, C. V.; Guest, J. S. Integration of Plant and Microbial Oil Processing at Oilcane Biorefineries for More Sustainable Biofuel Production. GCB Bioenergy 2024, 16 (11), e13183. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.13183.
- Cortés-Peña, Y. R.; Kurambhatti, C.; Eilts, K.; Singh, V.; Guest, J. S. Economic and Environmental Sustainability of Vegetative Oil Extraction Strategies at Integrated Oilcane and Oil-Sorghum Biorefineries. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2022, 10 (42), 13980–13990. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c04204.
- Cortés-Peña, Y. R.; Kumar, D.; Singh, V.; Guest, J. S. BioSTEAM: A Fast and Flexible Platform for the Design, Simulation, and Techno-Economic Analysis of Biorefineries under Uncertainty. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2020, 8 (8), 3302–3310. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b07040.