Dr Paulina Quintanilla

Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor (UK Lecturer) in Process Systems Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering, University College London (UCL)
Honorary Lecturer, Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London

Paulina is an Assistant Professor (UK Lecturer) in Process Systems Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UCL, and leads the LOOPS research group. She is also an Early Career Advisory Board member for the Control Engineering Practice (IFAC) and Minerals Engineering journals, and a Scientific Editor for the Results in Engineering journal (Elsevier).

Qualifications

PhD in Earth Science and Engineering — Feb 2023
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London
Thesis: Dynamic physics-based flotation models for effective predictive control

MEng and MSc in Chemical Engineering — Jan 2017
Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile
Thesis: Analysis of the effect of pressure and porosity on diffusion-controlled leaching

Employment

• Assistant Professor in Process Systems Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, UCL — Aug 2025 -
• Honorary Lecturer, Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London — Jan 2026 -
• Co-founder and Developer of Bubble Analyser Software, Independent Project — Jan 2021 -
• Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Brunel University of London — Jan 2024 - Jul 2025
• Research Associate in Process Systems Engineering, Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London — Dec 2022 - Dec 2023
• Research Assistant in Mineral Froth Flotation Optimisation, Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London — Nov 2022 - Dec 2022
• Junior Engineer, Wood PLC, Santiago, Chile — Jan 2018 – Mar 2018
• Research Assistant in Process Systems Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María — Aug 2017 – Aug 2018

Awards & recognitions

• Outstanding Research Supervision nominee, UCL Students’ Union UCL’s Student Choice Awards — 2026
• Malcolm McIvor Prize, Centre for Process Analytics and Control Technology (CPACT) — 2025
• MEI Young Person’s Award 2021, Minerals Engineering International — 2022
• IChemE Global Awards 2022 — Young Researcher finalist, Institution of Chemical Engineers — 2022
• 1st Place Best Poster Award, Society of Chemical Industry — 2022
• SCI Scholar 2020, Society of Chemical Industry — 2020
• 2nd Place Best Poster Award, ESE PhD Conference, Imperial College London — 2019
• Award to the Best Chemical Engineering Graduate, National Engineering College, Chile — 2017
• Award to the Best Chemical Engineering Graduate, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María — 2017
• Honour List for Outstanding Undergraduate Academic Achievement, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María — 2012 – 2016

Teaching experience

• Module leader, Mining and Mineral Processing, Department of Chemical Engineering, UCL — Oct 2025 -
• Module leader, Fluid Mechanics, Department of Chemical Engineering, Brunel University of London — Oct 2024 - Jul 2025
• Module leader, Process Systems Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Brunel University of London — Jan 2024 - Jul 2025
• Guest Lecturer, Mining Geology and Engineering, Imperial College London — Dec 2022
• Guest Lecturer, Process Control and Applied Statistics, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María — Mar 2018 – Aug 2018

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