Executive Team
Theodora Retsina, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Retsina founded American Process in 1995 and has led the company’s growth and
diversification efforts. Dr. Retsina has more than twenty years of experience in
executive management, engineering, process development and operations. Prior to
founding American Process, she was the International Project Manager for Parsons
and Whittemore Inc., a global design-build-operator of pulp and paper mills, where
she was responsible for project construction and process development and optimization.
Dr Retsina is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) and the author of over 30 scientific
publications, patents, and patents pending. She received a PhD in Chemical Engineering
from Imperial College, University of London.
Steve Rutherford
Chief Operating Officer
Steve Rutherford has more than 25 years of executive management experience in engineering,
product development, project execution, construction and operations. Prior to joining
American Process in 1997, Mr. Rutherford served as Engineering Vice President of Parsons
& Whittemore Inc. where he was responsible for implementation of projects totaling
over $1 billion for company owned pulp and paper mills in the USA, Canada,
and Spain. He received a Masters of Business Administration from the University
of Alabama and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the City University,
London, England. He is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE).
Mikhail Iakovlev
Chief Science Officer
Mikhail Iakovlev has over 14 years of experience in chemistry and technology of lignocellulosics conversion into cellulosic
fibers, biofuels, biomaterials and commodity chemicals. He has been with American Process for over 6 years leading research
efforts on implementation of API’s technologies for conversion of lignocellulosics into the value-added products. He received a D.Sc. degree
in Biorefineries from Aalto University, Finland. He is the author of over 35 scientific publications, patents, and patents pending
in the area of biomass pretreatment, fractionation, hydrolysis and fermentation.
Sophia Rouzinou
Technical Director, Process Integration
Ms. Rouzinou has over 22 years experience with American Process in process design, modeling, and optimization. She is
also an expert in using Pinch Analysis for energy integration. Ms. Rouzinou received
a MS in Process Integration from the University of Manchester Institute of Science
and Technology in the United Kingdom and a degree in Chemical Engineering from the
University of Patra in Greece.