Keynote Speaker

He then took that experience national as a Co-Founding member and Co-Chair of the Next-Generation Scientists for Biodiesel, a National Biodiesel Board sponsored educational and professional organization, which held educational webinars and organized poster sessions at the National Biodiesel Conference and Expo. Before beginning his Ph.D., he worked for two years as a research associate at a cellulosic ethanol start-up company, Mascoma Corporation, gaining real-world experience, at both the bench and pilot scales by helping translate novel academic research to commercial operation in lignocellulosic pretreatment technology. After completing his Ph.D., he served as a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developing novel catalysts and processes to upcycle waste plastics.  During his career he has authored peer-reviewed publications in journals like ACS Catalysis, Nature Catalysis, and a co-first authored publication in Science, in addition to four patents (including 1 provisional), and received several awards & fellowships including the USDA-NIFA Predoctoral Fellowship, the NREL Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, NREL Director’s Award, and currently serves as the Callahan Faculty Scholar in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University as an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering. 

Presentation Abstract: Our society is facing a series of convergent environmental tragedies, like the collapse in biodiversity, human caused climate change, the rapid accumulation of waste plastics in our waterways and oceans, and more.  These challenges will require a diversity of interdisciplinary technologies developed and deployed at exceptionally fast rates to market.  We have a history of these types of accomplishments in the past.  With next-generation researchers like you, we can do it again.  In this presentation I will summarize my recent efforts to create new plastic recycling technologies, since the only free-market approach to combat the plastics problem is to make recycling technologies profitable.  The term ‘upcycling’ has gained recent media attention as an attractive means to manage plastic waste, with one key-problem, few technologies exist capable of producing ‘high-value’ products from plastic waste.  In this seminar I will present on two plastic recycling approaches.  The first combines chemistry & biology capable of depolymerizing mixed plastic waste, like polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), and polystyrene (PS), and funneling these compounds into single product, like a biopolymer or a precursor for nylon product, using an engineered microbe.  The second approach uses tandem synergistic chemistry, alkane dehydrogenation and olefin metathesis, to depolymerize polyolefin polymers at temperatures below 200 °C using abundant alkane co-reactants and robust heterogeneous catalysts.