Prof. LaShanda T. J. Korley is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the Departments of Materials Science & Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware (UD). Korley is the Director of the Energy Frontier Research Center – Center for Plastics Innovation funded by the Department of Energy and also the Co-Director of the Materials Research Science and Center – UD Center for Hybrid, Active, and Responsive Materials funded by the National Science Foundation. She also is an Associate Editor for ACS Macro Letters. Her innovative research program utilizes a bioeconomy framework or the nexus of biologically inspired and sustainable principles for the molecular design, manufacture, and valorization of functional polymeric systems, including thermoplastics, networks, composites, and gels. Korley has received several distinguished honors, including 2023 (ACS Fellow, AIChE Fellow, Fellow of RSC, ACS POLY Fellow); 2022 (APS Fellow, ACS PMSE Fellow); 2021 Chemical and Engineering News Black Trailblazer); 2020 AIMBE Fellow, 2012 Kavli Fellow. LaShanda was selected for the 2023 U.S. Science Envoy Cohort by the U.S. State Department. She received a B.S. in both Chemistry & Engineering from Clark Atlanta University as well as a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Korley completed her doctoral studies at MIT in Chemical Engineering and the Program in Polymer Science and Technology, and she was the recipient of the Provost’s Academic Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell University.