Dear Colleagues,

I am delighted to let you know that Leo Chiang has been selected as the 
recipient of the 2016 AIChE Herbert Epstein Award for Technical 
Programming for organizing the Big Data Topical during the Spring 2015 
meeting. While I take credit merely for selecting Leo to organize this 
topical for CAST, Leo put in an extraordinary effort in conceiving and 
orchestrating all aspects of the topical. According to AIChE, ``the 
topical was the cornerstone “new draw” for the Spring 2015 meeting, was 
highly attended and attracted new Spring attendance from CAST, and 
others involved in IT/analytics/data analysis who had not recently 
participated in AIChE meetings.'' Please spread the word about CAST's 
Big Data Topical to any potentially interested parties. CAST continues 
this programming effort in 2016 and possibly beyond. Many thanks to Leo 
for his continued efforts in this regard.

Best wishes,
Nick Sahinidis
CAST Programming Chair