Sam Thorpe Email & Phone Number

Corpus Christi, Texas, United States

Leading the Cost and Optimization program at Tesla's greenfield Gulf Coast Lithium Refinery. Focused on extensive financial modeling and optimization of all aspects of the site (site spend, turnarounds, process improvements, modeling, logistics, and more).

Beaumont, Texas, United States

Senior chemical economist, responsible for weekly optimizations, and long-term strategy and profitability.

Beaumont, Texas, United States

Developed and enhanced large-scale linear and non-linear optimization models for feedstock selection, project scoping, economic optimization, and more.

Baytown, Tx

Provided global support for optimization projects, gaining expertise in first-principle and linear optimizations.

Provo, Utah Area

Worked on developing optimization for 3D drone imaging. Wrote an ACO (ant-colony optimization) and Genetic Algorithm solver for the set-covering problem.

Greater Houston

Worked several projects related to improving unit operations of an atmospheric pipestill.Investigated steam system pressure imbalance to identify problem areas and developed potential solutions to reduce ~$200,000/year of steam waste.Expanded heat exchanger monitoring tool to enable easier identification of fouling trends.

Baytown, Tx

Analyzed new technologies to help direct future research efforts.Developed models for several different plant configurations to simulate expected production with developing technologies.Utilized mass balance data from models to provide estimates of operating expenses, capital expenses, and economic return for various plant configurations to help determine focus of further research.

Provo, Utah Area

Researching advanced control methods (model predictive control and moving horizon estimation) for the petroleum industry.Discovered and removed code redundancies, increasing controller speed by up to 25%.Converting and streamlining control system code from MATLAB to Python.

Provo, Utah Area

Performed a wide variety of biochemical research involving viral replication in T-cells.Awarded three $1500 Undergraduate Research Awards.Optimized common lab procedure to reduce time required by 20%, with a time saving of 1 hour per procedure.Presented research at the Spring 2014 and 2015 BYU Student Research Conferences.

Provo, Utah Area

Assisted students in lab safety and understanding chemical concepts.Received an average student evaluation score of 4.9/5.0.

Laurel, Mt

Worked in the Distributed Control Systems group at the CHS Laurel Refinery.Identified and outlined a piping project expected to save $1.1 million/year, with a payback period of 3.4 months. Oversaw the connection of safety showers and a meteorological station to the refinery Emerson DeltaV distributed control system. Commissioned instruments and control valves as part of the startup of a two stage sour water stripper.