Course Tutors

Francis X. McConville holds a B.Sc. degree in Chemistry and M.Sc. degrees in both Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. He has some 35 years of experience in the chemical and related industries, including positions at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology and New England Renewable Fuels, where he was involved in such varied projects as oil recovery and biomass conversion.

He also spent 14 years at Sepracor, Inc. (now Sunovion) in the U.S. as a pharmaceutical process development engineer. His duties there included the design and operation of the company’s kilo-labs, as well as the scale-up and transfer of many proprietary API processes to pilot and manufacturing sites in Taiwan, Japan, England, Scotland, and Canada. He was closely involved in the development and optimization of processes based on a variety of technologies including selective biocatalysis, fermentation, ultrafiltration, and asymmetric crystallization.

For the past 16 years, Mr. McConville has worked at Impact Technology Development, Inc. in Devens, Massachusetts as a consultant, technology specialist and senior team leader. At Impact, Mr. McConville has been involved in such diverse projects as biomass conversion, emulsion polymerization, medical adhesives development, novel molten metal technology, and pharmaceutical crystallization optimization.

Mr. McConville is perhaps best known as the author of the popular manual for process development personnel entitled “The Pilot Plant Real Book – A Unique Handbook for the Chemical Process Industry”. This highly practical handbook has garnered praise from readers in the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries worldwide. Interested readers can learn more about the book at www.pprbook.com.