Rate My Professor Krystel Castillo

Krystel K. Castillo is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), holding the Lutcher Brown Chair in Mechanical Engineering and the GreenStar Endowed Professorship in Energy within the Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design. She serves as Director of the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute (TSERI). Castillo holds dual Ph.D. degrees from Texas Tech University and Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (Monterrey Tech), Mexico. Her academic career at UTSA began in August 2012 as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering, where she advanced to Associate Professor. From 2012 to 2017, she was Co-director of the Manufacturing Systems and Automation Laboratory, and core faculty in the Center of Advanced Manufacturing and Lean Systems, Center for Simulation, Visualization, and Real-Time Prediction, and Open Cloud Institute. As the first female Hispanic faculty member in the Mechanical Engineering Department, she has recruited underrepresented students, including female engineers and Hispanics, into her research group. She participated in Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowships at the Air Force Research Lab, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in 2014 and 2015.

Castillo's research focuses on mathematical programming and optimization techniques for large-scale complex systems under uncertainty, including supply chain modeling, logistics, meta-heuristics, and statistical quality control. Her work applies operations research and statistical methods to bioenergy systems, sustainability, defense, manufacturing, healthcare, electric vehicle adoption impacts on distribution networks, and big data analytics. Notable publications include the book Supply Chain Network Design Including Cost of Quality: A Strategic Model and Metaheuristics (2012); "Integrating biomass quality variability in stochastic supply chain modeling and optimization for large-scale biofuel production" (Journal of Cleaner Production, 2017); "Development of the IBSAL-SimMOpt Method for the Optimization of Quality in a Corn Stover Supply Chain" (2017); "Quantifying the Impact of Feedstock Quality on the Design of Bioenergy Supply Chain Networks" (2016); and "Metaheuristics Applied to Biorefinery Supply Chain Problems: Theory, Review, Challenges, and Future" (2014). She has received the 2018 HENAAC Award, 2017 INFORMS MIF Early Career Award, 2017 President’s Distinguished Achievement Award for Research Achievement, 2017 Outstanding Young Faculty Award from the American Society for Engineering Education Gulf Southwest Region, San Antonio Business Journal 40 under 40 Award (2017), Best Track Paper Award at the 2016 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference, and Third Place Paper Award at the 2016 IIE Engineering Lean and Six Sigma Conference. In 2021, she was inducted into the UTSA Academy of Distinguished Researchers.