Our Team

Rajat Barua, President and CEO

 

Rajat Barua is President and CEO of CPFD Software. He has over 20 years of industry experience in roles that span engineering, operations, finance, sales and marketing. Prior to his current role, he served as CEO of Senscient, Inc., a technology company at the forefront of innovation in the field of lasers and sensor research, development and commercialization. Prior to Senscient, Rajat was Vice President at Lime Rock Partners, a private equity firm. He began his career with Schlumberger, where he served as a field engineer in North Africa and offshore, in the Gulf of Mexico. Rajat is a chemical engineering graduate of McGill University and holds an MBA degree from Harvard University.

James Parker, Chief Technology Officer

 

James oversees the software development of Barracuda Virtual Reactor and CPFD’s computational research of multiphase modeling techniques. Prior to his appointment as CTO, James was Principal Chemical Engineer for CPFD Software and used Barracuda Virtual Reactor on a wide range of fluidization modeling projects for refining, polyolefin, biomass, coal, and polysilicon applications. James received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University

Peter Blaser, Vice President Of Operations

 

Peter is Vice President of Operations at CPFD Software with 20+ years’ experience developing and applying various general and specialized computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technologies.  Peter is passionate about helping the fluidization community remove guesswork surrounding the design and operation of fluid-particle processes through intelligent use of digitalization technology.  Over the past decade Peter has increasingly focused on refinery trouble-shooting and virtual testing, with particular emphasis on the FCCU and related components.

Peter’s CFD journey began at the University of Toronto, where he earned a Master’s of Applied Science degree before working for the CD-adapco group (now part of Siemens) deploying general purpose CFD technology across diverse industries.  Peter joined Arena-flow, a CPFD affiliate in 2003, helping make sand core engineering simulation standard practice in the metal-casting industries.

Peter Loezos, Vice President of Engineering

 

Peter is the Vice President of Engineering, with 18 years of experience in the development and commercialization of new processes for the refining and petrochemical industries. His previous experience includes technology development roles in ExxonMobil, SABIC and Lummus Technology where he had a specific emphasis on fluidization engineering. Peter has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Princeton

Sam Clark, Barracuda Virtual Reactor Product Manager

 

Sam is the Barracuda Virtual Reactor Product Manager, and has been with CPFD since 2008. He is an expert at modeling thermal, reacting, multiphase gas-particles systems with Barracuda Virtual Reactor. Sam manages technical support for CPFD’s global user base with excellence, leads in content development for software documentation, oversees our training programs and is a critical liaison between CPFD’s engineering and development teams.  Sam holds a Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of New Mexico.