PodCAT

Prof. Lars Grabow is the Dan Luss Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 2008, followed by postdoctoral appointments at the Technical University of Denmark and Stanford University. His expertise is the application of electronic structure calculations, kinetic modeling, data science and transient kinetic characterization to problems in heterogeneous and electro-catalysis, surface science, and energy transition.  Prof. Grabow received the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Award (2014), and the NSF CAREER Award (2015), among others. At the University of Houston, he was recognized with the Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award and was selected as "Pathway Professor" teaching courses with high DWIF rates. Notable prior service roles include Chair of the Southwest Catalysis Society (SWCS) and the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division of AIChE. Currently, he serves as NACS representative for SWCS and Alternate Councilor for the ACS CATL Division. He is also Editor-in-Chief of ChemistryEurope, after previously serving as Editor of Surface Science. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Grabow to PodCAT!

Prof. Brandon Bukowski is an Assistant Professor in the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He holds BS and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Purdue University, respectively. At Purdue he was advised by Jeffrey Greeley where he modeled the kinetics of zeolite and supported nanoparticle catalysts using Density Functional Theory and Molecular Dynamics. He performed post-doctoral research at Northwestern University under the supervision of Randall Snurr studying diffusion in nanoporous materials including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and porous polymers. Bukowski started at Johns Hopkins University in July of 2021. He has received a DOE BES Early Career Research Award, an Amazon Research Award, a Doctoral New Investigator grant from the ACS Petroleum Research Fund, a Ralph E. Powe award from Oak Ridge Associated Universities, and a Hopkins Catalyst Award. He is the program chair for the AIChE catalysis and reaction engineering division and program chair of the Northeast Corridor Zeolite Association. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Bukowski to PodCAT!

Prof. Madelyn Ball is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Michigan State University. Prof. Ball received her B.S. from University of New Hampshire and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin Madison under James Dumesic before conducting postdoctoral studies under Prof. Christopher Jones at Georgia Tech. Prof. Ball's research interests are in heterogeneous catalysis, focusing on design of well-controlled nanoparticle materials for CO2 and natural gas conversion reactions to facilitate sustainable chemical production. Her group uses catalysis and synthetic materials chemistry, operando spectroscopic techniques and well-controlled catalyst synthesis methods to elucidate active site structures under reactive environments for designing and developing improved catalysts. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Ball to PodCAT!

Prof. Christopher Paolucci is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia. He is a "Double Domer" having completed his B.S. and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Afterwards, he was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University. The Paolucci group focuses on computer simulations of chemical reactions at interfaces.  Research areas include computational catalysis (understanding how current catalysts accelerate chemical reactions at the molecular level, and predicting the performance of potential new ones), and modeling of material synthesis and deactivation for both catalysts and other solid materials.  The group uses existing quantum and classical simulation methods and also develops new hybrid methods that bridge micro and macroscopic length scales through the use of techniques such as machine learning and Monte Carlo simulation.  For this work, he has received numerous awards and honors, including the NSF CAREER award and the invitation to present as an Early Career Investigator at the 2024 Gordon Research Conference on Catalysis. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Paolucci on PodCAT!

Prof. Tibor Szilvási ( seal-vase-she) studied chemical engineering, chemistry, and physics at the Budapest University of Technology, Hungary, where he completed his PhD degree in 2016. After a postdoctoral stay at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Prof. Manos Mavrikakis he joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at The University of Alabama as a tenure-track assistant professor in 2020. Prof. Szilvási's research group focuses on computational catalysis and materials design and has published over 140 peer-reviewed publications. Tibor's research group is funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Education, Department of Defense, the Krell Institute, and NVIDIA. Tibor has received numerous awards including NSF CAREER Award, and Outstanding Junior Faculty Award from the Computers in Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society. Most recently, Tibor was announced as the 2026 recipient of the Early Career in Catalysis Award of the Catalysis Science & Technology division of the American Chemical Society. Tibor also serves as the Graduate Program Coordinator of his Department, Early Career Board Member of Journal of Catalysis, President of the Southeastern Catalysis Society, and Programming Chair of the Catalysis & Reaction Engineering division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Szilvasi to PodCAT!

Prof. Jingguang Chen is the Thayer Lindsley Professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University, with a joint appointment at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He received his B.S. degree from Nanjing University and his PhD degree from the University of Pittsburgh. After finishing an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship in Germany, he joined the Exxon Corporate Research Laboratory for several years. He started his academic career at the University of Delaware and rose to the rank of the Claire LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering and the Director of the Center for Catalytic Science and Technology. He is the co-author of over 500 journal publications and over 20 United States patents. His research interests include fundamental understanding of carbides, nitrides and bimetallic catalysts for applications in thermocatalysis and electrocatalysis. His research group utilizes a combination of experimental studies, in-situ characterization and density functional theory calculations. He served in many leadership positions, including the Chair of the Catalysis Division of the American Chemical Society, the President of the North American Catalysis Society, and the Chair of Gordon Research Conference on Catalysis. He was a co-founder and the director of the Synchrotron Catalysis Consortium, which was established in 2025 with support from the Department of Energy to assist catalysis researchers to utilize synchrotron techniques. He is an Executive Editor of ACS Catalysis and has been on the editorial advisory boards of many journals. He received the George Olah Award on Hydrocarbon Chemistry from the American Chemical Society, the Robert Wilhelm Award on Chemical Reaction Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Robert Burwell Lectureship from the North American Catalysis Society. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.  It is our great pleasure to welcome Prof. Jingguang Chen to PodCAT for our 50th episode!

Prof. Carlos Morales-Guio is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA. His group develops reactor-centric methods that decouple transport from intrinsic kinetics and translate insights to scalable, model-informed electrolyzer designs. Carlos received his B. Eng. degree in Chemical Engineering from Osaka University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Before joining UCLA in the fall of 2018, Carlos was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Carlos is a recipient of the Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) Award 2017, a Scialog Fellowship on Negative Emission Sciences, the NSF CAREER Award, and is a Resnick Young Investigator. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Morales-Guio on PodCAT!

Prof. Linsey Seitz is an Associate Professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Northwestern University. She received her B.S. (2010) in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State University, supported with a full ride scholarship. She earned her M.S. (2013) and Ph.D. (2015) in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University supported as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and later as a Stanford DARE Fellow. Linsey completed postdoctoral research at the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology with the Institute of Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation, supported by a Helmholtz Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her research uses tools at the interface of electrocatalysis and spectroscopy to investigate dynamic catalyst materials and reaction environments towards the sustainable production of fuels and chemicals, as well as upconversion of waste streams. Linsey was recently honored with the ACS Catalysis Early Career Award (2024) and has been recognized as a "Pioneer of the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division" of AIChE (2021). She has also received an NSF Career Award (2022), an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2025), and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2025). It is our great pleasure to welcome Prof. Seitz to PodCAT!

Prof. Marcel Schreier received his B.S. degree in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from EPFL and his M.S. degree in Chemical and Bioengineering from ETH Zurich. During his studies, Schreier worked on Li-Ion Batteries at BASF and investigated Fischer-Tropsch refining mechanisms at the University of Alberta. His master's research was performed in the laboratory of Sossina Haile at Caltech, where he designed materials for fuel cell electrodes. He subsequently joined the laboratory of Michael Grätzel at EPFL, where he developed electrocatalysts and devices for the sunlight-driven conversion of CO2 to fuels. Following his passion for fundamental electrochemistry, he moved to MIT, where he worked with Yogesh Surendranath as an SNSF Postdoctoral Fellow. He subsequently joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as the Richard H. Soit Assistant Professor. He is also an affiliate faculty member of the Department of Chemistry. Together with his research group, Prof. Schreier works to understand how the structure of the electrochemical interface and the surface chemistry of catalytic materials influence the fundamental mechanisms which drive chemical transformations using electrical energy. While working at the University of Wisconsin, he has received the Beckman Young Investigator Award, a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, and an NSF CAREER Award. He has been named a Scialog fellow, a Kavli Fellow (National Academy of Science) and has participated in several Frontiers of Engineering meetings of the National Academy of Engineering. Apart from electrochemistry, Prof. Schreier is passionate about modern art, energy systems, technologies of all kinds and policy. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Marcel Schreier to PodCAT!

Prof. Ariel L. Furst is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. Her lab combines biological, chemical, and materials engineering to solve challenges in human health and environmental sustainability. They develop technologies for implementation in low-resource settings to ensure equitable access to technology. She completed her Ph.D. in the lab of Prof. Jacqueline K. Barton at the California Institute of Technology developing new cancer diagnostic strategies based on DNA charge transport. She was an A. O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Prof. Matthew Francis at UC, Berkeley developing sensors to monitor environmental pollutants. She is the recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and the Sloan Fellowship. She is the cofounder of three startups and is passionate about entrepreneurship, in addition to STEM outreach and increasing participation of underrepresented groups in engineering. It is our pleasure to host Prof. Furst on PodCAT!

David Flaherty is the Thomas C. DeLoach Jr. Endowed Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Prof. Flaherty completed a BS in Chemical Engineering at UC-Berkeley and completed his PhD at University of Texas Austin at the interface between chemical engineering and physical chemistry studying thin film deposition and chemical reactions at surfaces with Prof. C Buddie Mullins. During this time, he was also a visiting student at Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory with the surface chemistry team. Flahrety was subsequently a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley with Prof Enrique Iglesia examining hydrogenolysis reactions of alkanes over supported metal transition metal nanoparticles. At his current position at Georgia Tech, he leads a group that develops understanding and design principles for the use of solid catalysts to resolve challenges for the sustainable production of chemicals and energy carriers.  Research focuses on generating new insight into chemical phenomena that emerge when reactions occur on complex and dynamic catalyst, often solid-liquid interfaces. Flaherty has been recognized with numerous awards including the Department of Energy Early Career Award; National Science Foundation CAREER Award; the American Vacuum Society, Early Career Research Award; the Eastman Foundation Distinguished Lecturer in Catalysis; and the Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis from the North American Catalysis Society. He also currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for Journal of Catalysis. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. David Flaherty to PodCAT!

Originally from Egypt, Prof. Omar Abdelrahman grew up in the United Arab Emirates, where he developed his passion for chemical engineering and went on to receive his BSc in Chemical Engineering (American University of Sharjah, 2011). Driven by the desire to be involved in scientific research, Omar moved to upstate NY for his PhD in chemical engineering at Syracuse University (2016), followed by a postdoctoral position at the University of Minnesota. In 2018, Omar joined the University of Massachusetts Amherst as an assistant professor and is now an associate professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. The Abdelrahman lab is focused on heterogeneous catalysis and reaction engineering, with an emphasis on understanding and controlling non-ideal thermodynamic environments for selective chemical transformations. Omar is a team leader for the center for programmable energy catalysis (CPEC), a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center, where efforts in his team target the programmable control of active site electronic charge distribution. The group is also committed to advancing accessible and affordable science, through developing and disseminating experimental designs aimed at lowering the barrier to entry into catalysis research. When he gets a chance to spend time in the lab, Omar loves nothing more than tinkering alongside his students to come up with new and fun reactor designs. Outside the lab, Omar enjoys exploring the city of Houston on bike, a fan of everything food & drink, and travelling for that next outdoor adventure. It is our great pleasure to welcome Omar to PodCAT!

Prof. Rajamani (Raj) Gounder received his BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin in 2006, where his interest in catalysis was sparked while performing research under Jim Dumesic. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from UC-Berkeley in 2011 under the guidance of Enrique Iglesia, and then completed a postdoctoral stay at Caltech with Mark Davis. He started his faculty career at Purdue in 2013, and is currently the R. Norris and Eleanor Shreve Professor in Chemical Engineering and the Director of the Purdue Catalysis Center. Raj's research group studies the kinetic and mechanistic details of catalytic reactions, the design of zeolites and porous materials with tailored site and surface properties, and the development of methods to characterize and titrate active sites in catalytic surfaces. His research group has been recognized by the PECASE award, the Sloan Research Fellowship, the Early Career in Catalysis Award from the ACS CATL Division, and the Rutherford Aris Award from ISCRE. Raj has also served as president and director of the Catalysis Club of Chicago, and co-organized technical programs for the North American Catalysis Society Meeting and the AIChE CRE Division.

Prof. Michele L. Sarazen is an Assistant Professor at Princeton University in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and an associated faculty with the DOE Princeton Plasma Physic Laboratory. Her research group couples synthetic, kinetic, and theoretical investigations of porous crystalline materials as catalysts and adsorbents for sustainable fuel and chemical production with an emphasis on reaction and deactivation mechanisms. She earned her BS in Chemical Engineering, summa cum laude, at the Pennsylvania State University and her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley under Enrique Iglesia. Before arriving at Princeton, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology with Christopher Jones. Her recognitions include the NSF CAREER Award, ACS CATL Division Early Career in Catalysis, Robert Augustine Award of the Organic Reactions Catalysis Society, and AIChE 35 under 35. She currently serves as a D&I Task Force member for AIChE in Catalysis and Reaction Engineering, Director of the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York, Associate Editor for Applied Catalysis B, and past ACS CATL Division Spring Program Chair.

Prof. Carsten Sievers is a professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. Prof. Sievers' expertise spans heterogeneous catalysis, reactor design, applied spectroscopy, and the synthesis and characterization of solid materials. By bridging fundamental science with applied engineering, his research aims to develop innovative catalytic processes for producing fuels and chemicals, especially from renewable resources like biomass. In his fundamental studies, Prof. Sievers uses advanced spectroscopic techniques to uncover how catalysts work on a molecular level. This insight guides the design of more effective and robust catalysts. His applied research focuses on optimizing catalytic processes in continuous reactor systems, with applications ranging from biomass conversion to selective oxidation of methane. Prof. Sievers has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications and has significantly contributed to catalysis in petroleum refining, fine chemical synthesis, and renewable energy. He also serves as Editor of Applied Catalysis A: General and has held numerous leadership roles in major professional societies including ACS, AIChE, and the Southeastern Catalysis Society, as well as Chair of the 29th North American Catalysis Society Meeting.  

Dr. Bob McCabe is the former Program Director of the NSF CBET-Catalysis program after retiring in February 2025. Bob's interest in catalysis began as an undergrad student in chemical engineering at the University of Houston through a combination of catalytic reaction engineering, an elective survey course in catalysis, and a senior design project involving the Andrussow process for HCN catalyzed by a Pt-Rh gauze. The latter, via a collaboration between Dan Luss and Lanny Schmidt, led to Bob's graduate work at the University of Minnesota under Lanny involving UHV surface science studies of CO and H2 adsorption on various single-crystal Pt surfaces. After graduation, Bob worked for a couple years at Conoco in Ponca City, OK on hydrodesulfurization catalysis before moving to the Detroit area for a 36-year career in automotive catalysis split between GM (10 years) and Ford (26 years). While contemplating retirement in 2014, Bob lucked into a program director position at NSF where he spent 10 wonderful years leading the Catalysis program in the CBET division, before his recent "final" retirement at the end of February. In retirement, Bob is excited about keeping up with the catalysis and reaction engineering communities by serving on the AIChE CRE division Section 20 program committee.  Outside of catalysis, his interests include renovating his new (older home) in Leesburg, VA, riding his bicycles, repolishing his clarinet skills, and hanging out with his 4 grandkids and their families.

Prof. Aditya Bhan received his Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech.) in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 2000 and his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 2005. From January 2005 to August 2007, he was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California at Berkeley and since then he has been on the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science faculty at the University of Minnesota where he currently serves as a Distinguished McKnight University Professor. He leads a research group focused on mechanistic characterization of catalysts useful in energy conversion and petrochemical synthesis. His group at the University of Minnesota has been recognized with the Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis by the North American Catalysis Society, the Young Researcher Award from the Acid-Base Catalysis Society, the Ipatieff Prize from the American Chemical Society, and the NSF and DOE early career awards. He serves as Editor for Journal of Catalysis and has served as Chair of the ACS Catalysis Science & Technology Division. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Bhan to PodCAT!

Prof. Friederike C. Jentoft studied Chemistry at Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen and at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, where she earned her Dr. rer. nat. (1994) under the guidance of Helmut Knözinger. After working as a postgraduate researcher in Bruce Gates' group at the University of California in Davis, she led a research group in the Department of Inorganic Chemistry for 12 years at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. In 2008, she assumed a faculty position at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, where she was named Anadarko Petroleum Corporation Presidential Professor in 2014. Since 2015, she has been Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Jentoft received a Young Scientists Prize from the International Association of Catalysis Societies (2000), the Excellence in Catalysis Award from the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York (2018), and a Lady Davis Fellowship from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (2021). She is a Fellow of the AIChE. From 2009 to 2015, she served as an editor of Advances in Catalysis. Jentoft's research focuses on acid-base catalysis and redox chemistry of Group V-VII transition metals. Her laboratory applies reaction analysis and kinetics, in situ spectroscopy, and calorimetry to understand surface reactions and improve catalysts and processes. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Jenthoft to PodCAT!

Prof. Mark A. Barteau holds the Charles D. Holland Chair at Texas A&M University, with appointments in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. He received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford working with Professor Robert. J. Madix. He was an NSF Post-doctoral Fellow at the Technische Universität München with Professor Dietrich Menzel, before joining the University of Delaware in 1982. He has held faculty appointments at the University of Delaware, the University of Michigan, and Texas A&M University, as well as visiting appointments at the University of Pennsylvania the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006, and the National Academy of Inventors in 2018. Dr. Barteau's research, presented in more than 260 publications and a similar number of invited lectures, focuses on chemical reactions at solid surfaces and their applications in heterogeneous catalysis and energy processes. He is known for the application of surface science techniques to understand reaction mechanisms and site requirements on metal oxide surfaces, and for combined experimental and computational studies of ethylene epoxidation. In addition to his scientific publications he has contributed a number of perspectives on energy, environment, economics, and policy to The Conversation,  Fortune, and NPR, among other media outlets. Dr. Barteau has also served in a number of leadership positions throughout his career, including as Senior Vice Provost for Research and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Delaware, Director of the University of Michigan Energy Institute, and Vice President for Research at Texas A&M. He has served on numerous boards and advisory committees, including the Board on  Chemical  Sciences  and  Technology  of  the  National  Academies  of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; the Governing Board of the Council for Chemical Research; the Chemical Sciences Roundtable (co-chair); the Council of Chemical Sciences of the DOE Office of Science (chair); the Science Advisory Committee of the Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; the science advisory board for the National Institute of Clean and Low-Carbon Energy (NICE) China; and the Board of Directors of NextEnergy in Detroit. Dr. Barteau was named in 2008 as one of the "100 Engineers of the Modern Era" by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). He is a fellow of both AIChE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received numerous awards, including the 2018 Lawrence K. Cecil Award in Environmental Chemical Engineering, the 2001 Alpha Chi Sigma Award, and the 1991 Allan P. Colburn Award, presented by AIChE; the 1998 International Catalysis Award, presented by the International Association of Catalysis Societies; the 1995 Ipatieff Prize from the American Chemical Society; the Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis, given by the North American Catalysis Society, and the 1993 Canadian Catalysis Lecture Tour Award of the Catalysis Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He has served as associate editor of the AIChE Journaland WIRES Energy and Environment, and on the editorial boards of a number of other Journals, including Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Researchand the Journal  of  Catalysis. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Barteau to PodCAT!

Prof. John Keith is an R. K. Mellon Faculty Fellow in Energy and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Energy. After obtaining his Ph.D. from Caltech, he was an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ulm and then an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University. He began his independent position at Pitt in September 2013. His group uses first principles-based computational chemistry to study chemical reaction mechanisms for fundamental insights to aid the design of molecular and material catalysts. He received an NSF-CAREER award from CBET Catalysis in 2017 and did a research sabbatical at the University of Luxembourg from 2019-2020. His recent research interests have included mechanistic studies to elucidate electrochemical ozone generation from water, reactive forcefield developments for atomic scale mechanistic studies of corrosion, and the development of new computational methods for broad applications at the confluence of chemistry, materials, and engineering.

Dr. Tracy L. Lohr is Senior Researcher at Shell. She obtained her Ph.D in organometallic catalysis at the University of Calgary. She then pursued a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Tobin J. Marks (in collaboration with Peter C. Stair) at Northwestern University working on heterogeneous catalytic valorization of biomass. She spent over 2 years as a Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern in the Center for Catalysis and Surface Science working in the areas of both homo- and heterogeneous catalysis, with particular focus on tandem catalysis, olefin polymerization, atomic layer deposition, and various heterogeneous oxidative processes. She joined Shell in 2018 where she is currently a Senior Researcher in the Chemical Catalysis Group. She works on the invention, development, and deployment of heterogeneous catalysis technologies. The opinions expressed in the podcast are Tracy Lohr's and do not necessarily reflect those of Shell.

Prof. Joaquin Resasco was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina. He completed his B.S. at the University of Oklahoma, and his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley under the guidance of Prof. Alex Bell. At Berkeley, he was an NSF and UC Chancellor's Fellow.  Following his Ph.D., Joaquin was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara with Prof. Phil Christopher. In 2021, Joaquin became an Assistant Professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Joaquin is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Young Investigator Award, the ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award, the Forbes 30 Under 30, and AIChE's 35 under 35.

Prof. Jason Adams completed his B.S. at Georgia Tech in 2015, where he studied the fundamentals of gas adsorption and diffusion on nanoporous carbon materials under Bill Koros. He then pursued a PhD at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as an NSF graduate fellow under the mentorship of David Flaherty. There, he conducted fundamental studies investigating thermal and electrochemical reactions of hydrogen and oxygen to form hydrogen peroxide over noble metal catalysts, where he graduated in 2022. Afterward, Jason pursued postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology under the mentorship of Karthish Manthiram to develop automated reactors and elucidate the mechanisms of electrochemical epoxidation of propylene to propylene oxide using water as the O-atom source. As of January 2025, Jason has begun his career as an assistant professor at Rice University, where he is building a group focused on fundamental experimental studies at the interface of electrochemistry, thermal heterogeneous catalysis, and organic chemistry. He aims to develop technologies for decarbonizing chemical industries by low-temperature conversions of commodity chemicals.

Prof. Eranda Nikolla is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, MI. Prior to this, she was a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. She received her received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Michigan in 2009 working with Prof. Suljo Linic and Prof. Johannes Schwank in the area of solid-state high temperature electrocatalysis. She conducted a two-year postdoctoral work at California Institute of Technology with Prof. Mark E. Davis working on designing functionalized silica and zeolite catalysts for selective conversions of biomass derived feedstocks. Her research interests focus on the development of heterogeneous catalysts and electrocatalysts for chemical and electrochemical energy conversion/storage processes. As an integral part of engineering catalytic structures, Nikolla has implemented a paradigm which involves a combination of controlled synthesis, advanced characterization, kinetic measurements, and quantum chemical calculations to unearth the underlying mechanism that governs their catalytic performance for targeted reactions.  Her group's impact to catalytic science has been recognized through the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Department of Energy Early Career Research Award, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Young Scientist Award from the International Congress on Catalysis, the 2019 ACS Women Chemists Committee (WCC) Rising Star Award, the 2021 Michigan Catalysis Society Parravano Award for Excellence in Catalysis Research and Development, the 2022 ACS Catalysis Lectureship for the Advancement of Catalytic Science, the 2023 Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos Award for Creativity in Catalysis and the 2024 Excellence in Catalysis Award from Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York.

Prof. Susannah Scott is a Distinguished Professor in both Chemical Engineering and in Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Iowa State University, under the direction of Jim Espenson and Andreja Bakac, for her work on the activation of O2 and transition metal-catalyzed oxidation mechanisms. She was awarded a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship for work with Jean-Marie Basset at the Institut de recherches sur la catalyse (CNRS) in Lyon, France. In 1994, she joined the faculty of the University of Ottawa (Canada), where she was named a Canada Research Chair. In 2003, she moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she currently holds the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Chair in Sustainable Catalysis. She is an Executive Editor for ACS Catalysis, and a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science. Her research interests include the design of heterogeneous catalysts with well-defined active sites for the conversion of conventional and unconventional carbon-based feedstocks, including the use of renewable and recycled carbon; methods for the operando spectroscopic characterization of catalysts and the study of reaction mechanisms; and decarbonization strategies for the chemical industry.

For our 30th episode it is a pleasure to welcome Prof. Charles (Charlie) T. Campbell! Prof. Campbell is Professor Emeritus in Chemistry at the University of Washington, where he is also Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering and of Physics, and the Rabinovitch Endowed Chair in Chemistry since 2012. He received his BS (1975) and PhD (1979, under JM White) degrees at the University of Texas at Austin in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, then did postdoctoral research in Germany with Gerhard Ertl (2007 Nobel Prize Winner). He is the author of over 370 publications and two patents on surface chemistry, catalysis, physical chemistry and biosensing, with 40,000 citations and an h-index of 103 (Google Scholar).  He is an elected Fellow of the ACS, the AVS and the AAAS, Honorary Fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society, and Member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.  He received the Arthur W. Adamson Award of the ACS, the ACS Award for Colloid or Surface Chemistry, the ACS Gabor Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis, the ACS Catalysis Award for Exceptional Achievements, the Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award, the Robert Burwell Award/Lectureship of the North American Catalysis Society, the Medard W. Welch Award of the AVS, the Gauss Professorship of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, the Ipatieff Lectureship of Northwestern University and an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award.  He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Surface Science Reports and Catalysis Reviews in Science and Engineering, and on the boards of Catalysis Letters, Surface Science and Topics in Catalysis. He previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Surface Science for over ten years.

Dr. Chris Bradley is a Program Manager in Catalysis Science at the U.S. Department of Energy.  He earned B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Biology at the University of Kentucky and a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Cornell University. He was then a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley.  His independent academic career involved stints as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Texas Tech University from 2008-2012 and at Mount St. Mary's University from 2012-2016. After being promoted in 2016, Chris moved to his current role. While at DOE, Chris has been involved with several strategic planning efforts- many focused on sustainable chemistry. In 2023, he served as a half-time detail in the Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation (S4). His main responsibility in the role involved lead coordination of the announcement and execution of the Clean Fuels & Products Energy Earthshot.

Prof. Suljo Linic was born in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he completed his elementary and high school education. His family were forcefully displaced from Bosnia during the Bosnian war of 1990s. He moved to the USA in 1994 after being awarded a faculty scholarship from West Chester University in PA. Suljo obtained his PhD degree in chemical engineering in 2004 working with Prof. Mark Barteau at University of Delaware, specializing in surface and colloidal chemistry and heterogeneous catalysis. He was a Max Planck postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Dr. Matthias Scheffler at the Fritz Haber Institute, working on first principles studies of surface chemistry. He started his independent faculty career in 2004 at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he is currently Martin Lewis Perl Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering.  Suljo's research has been recognized through multiple awards. There are too many to list here, but some of the most prominent ones include the Gabor A. Somorjai Award by the American Chemical Society, the Emmett Award by The North American Catalysis Society, the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Young Investigator Award by American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award awarded by the Dreyfus Foundation. Suljo has presented more than 200 invited and keynote lectures. He is also an associate editor of ACS Catalysis.

Prof. Phillip Christopher earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from University of California, Santa Barbara in 2006 and his M.S and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from University of Michigan in 2011 working with Prof. Suljo Linic. From 2011-2017 he was an Assistant Professor at University of California, Riverside. In 2017 he moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara where he is a Professor and Vice Chair for Undergraduate Affairs in the Chemical Engineering Department and the Mellichamp Chair in Sustainable Manufacturing. He serves as a Senior Editor for ACS Energy Letters. His research interests are in sustainable chemical conversion, heterogeneous catalysis by supported metals, dynamic behavior of catalysts, and photocatalysis by metal nanostructures. He has been given various awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), AIChE CRE Division Young Investigator Award, and Ipatieff Prize from the ACS. 

Dr. Simon R. Bare is a distinguished scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He earned his B.Sc. in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Surface Chemistry from the University of Liverpool, UK. He was a postdoctoral fellow at both Cornell University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  He then transitioned in industry and held various positions in catalyst research at The Dow Chemical Company over 10 years, and then at UOP, a Honeywell Company for 19 years. He then had a career change and joined Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in 2016.  His research is focused on in-situ/operando catalyst characterization using techniques available at synchrotrons, with a focus on X-ray absorption spectroscopy to develop structure-property relationships. He enjoys developing and applying new catalyst characterization techniques. His group, the Consortium for Operando and Advanced Catalyst Characterization via Electronic Spectroscopy and Structure (Co-ACCESS), develops methodology to allow any catalysis researcher to perform their experiments effectively, efficiently, and safely at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL). His group currently collaborates with over 30 catalysis-focused research groups in the US and globally. He has authored over 200 publications and holds 10 US patents. He is a fellow of the AAAS and had held many leadership positions including being a member of BESAC from 2008-2017. Mentorship, encouragement, and inclusivity are high on his value system. He fully embraces the concept that collaboration is the key to drive science forward of we are to meet the climate goals of 2030 and 2050. It was a pleasure to have Simon on PodCAT!

Dr. Sean Hunt is the co-founder and CTO of Solugen. He focuses on utilizing novel metal catalysts, scaling up proprietary chemienzymatic process technologies, and developing the framework for Solugen's molecule factories: the Bioforge. His engineering endeavors have spanned a wide range of industries and applications, working as fuel cell engineer for the U.S. Navy, a vaccine and API process engineer for Merck in Singapore, and a Cocoa Puff engineer at General Mills. Sean holds a PhD in chemical engineering from MIT where he was advised by Prof. Yuriy Roman as an NSF graduate research fellow. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Industry and Manufacturing and co-author on more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and patents, including first author publications in Science, Angewandte Chemie, and Energy and Environmental Science.

Dr. Stafford (Staff) Sheehan leads Air Company as President and Chief Technology Officer. Staff is a scientist and entrepreneur who has developed several commercial technologies based on his applied research in the fields of chemistry, physics, and computer science, and has built collaborations with several world-renowned universities and institutes through his research. He completed his PhD at Yale University in 2015 as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and was awarded Yale's Wolfgang Prize for the top doctoral dissertation in chemistry. His work has been featured in various publications, most recently being named as one of MIT Tech Review's Innovators under 35. Awards for his work include the BASF-Volkswagen Global Award for Applied Research, the United Nations Ideas for Change Award, and others. We are very excited to have Dr. Staff Sheehan on PodCAT! In Your Element

On this episode of PodCAT we welcome Cathy Tway, bp's Senior Director for Chemistry and Catalysis. Cathy designs and directs development programs to deliver bp's growth engines portfolio. Cathy has a wealth of industrial experience, having held leadership roles at several major chemical companies including most recently serving in leadership positions at both Johnson Matthey and Dow before joining bp. She has industrial experience in identifying and creating new science and technologies, scaling up processes, commercialization, licensing, and plant support of catalytic systems. Cathy is passionate about technology commercialization, and she has successfully brought two new inorganic materials and four catalyst technologies to market, with two of these processes still in operation today. Cathy frequently serves on review panels, boards, and committees, supporting numerous external initiatives including many for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, where she is currently a member of the Chemical Sciences and Technology Board. In recognition of her contributions to inorganic materials science Cathy was recently named a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. She is a physical inorganic chemist by training, earning her PhD from the University of Nebraska. We are thrilled to have Cathy Tway on PodCAT! The opinions expressed in the podcast are Cathy Tway's and do not necessarily reflect those of bp.

Dr. Randall Meyer received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Rice University, his master's degree in environmental engineering from UCLA, and his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He then performed postdoctoral research at both the Fritz's Haber Institute and the University of Virginia working under the guidance of Prof. Freund and Neurock, respectively. Randall then before began his independent academic career at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he rose to the rank of associate professor. After obtaining tenure, Randall joined the Corporate Strategic Research team at ExxonMobil, where he been working as a research scientist ever since. Randall's research interests span a diverse range of topics in catalytic science including selective hydrogenation, periodic reactivity trends, intermetallics, and natural gas upgrading. The opinions expressed in the podcast are Randall Meyer's and do not necessarily reflect those of ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering.

Darren Lipomi is a professor of nanoengineering, chemical engineering, and materials Science at UC San Diego. He is also the Associate Dean for Students and the Faculty Director of the IDEA Engineering Student Center at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD. He is the incoming chair of Chemical Engineering at University of Rochester, scheduled to begin his term in July!   Darren earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry with a minor in physics at Boston University, and his PhD in chemistry at Harvard with Prof. George M. Whitesides. He did his Postdoc with Zhenan Bao at Stanford, and started his independent career at UCSD in 2012. His research interests include the chemistry of organic materials, mechanical properties of semiconducting polymers for flexible solar cells, biomechanical sensors, and phenomena at the intersection of materials chemistry with human perception and cognition. He is the recipient of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator award, the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, and the PECASE award. Darren hosts a podcast, "Molecular Podcasting with Darren Lipomi" and YouTube channel with over 16 k subscribers and nearly 1 million views. It is a pleasure to welcome Darren Lipomi to PodCAT!

Prof. Julie Rorrer is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Washington. She obtained her doctoral degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where she investigated etherification catalysis under the guidance of Profs. Alexis T. Bell and Dean Toste. She then performed postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts  Institute of Technology under the guidance of Prof. Yuriy Roman-Leshkov with funding from a Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship. She was also recently recognized for her early career achievements and contributions to the field of chemical engineering by being listed as one of AIChE's 35 under 35. She is also an avid artist and creator of Color Me PhD, which is a coloring book series designed to introduce young children to scientific concepts of contemporary interest.

Electrocatalysis guru Prof. Ian McCrum did his undergraduate studies at Clarkson University, graduating in 2012. From there he went on to Penn State for his PhD, where he was advised by Prof. Mike Janik. In 2017 he moved to the Netherlands, studying at Leiden University as a postdoc under advisor Marc Koper. He returned to Clarkson in 2020 as an assistant professor. There he has won several awards, most notably the ACS PRF award and the NSF CAREER award. Tom had the pleasure of sitting next to Ian for three years while they were both in the Janik group, where Tom learned to live by one of his personal mantras: "when in doubt: ask Ian". Ian we're thrilled to have you on the show.     

Prof. William Schneider earned his PhD studying Inorganic Chemistry at The Ohio State University. Following his PhD he spent over a decade working at the Ford Motor Company, where he researched strategies for mitigating the environmental impact of automotive emissions. He joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Notre Dame in 2004 and he has served as the department chair since 2020. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is an Executive Editor of J Phys Chem C. In 2009, he received the BP Foundation Outstanding Teacher Award, which happens to be the same year the Tom took Bill's Physical Chemistry course. Tom can attest that the award was well deserved!

Prof. Lea Winter is an Assistant Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University. Lea earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Yale and received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University as a NSF graduate research fellow, working under the supervision of Professor Jingguang Chen - sharing academic lineage with Marc. Lea then returned to Yale as a nanotechnology enabled water treatment distinguished postdoctoral fellow and started her independent career as an assistant professor in 2022. We are thrilled to welcome Prof. Lea Winter to PodCAT!

On this episode of PodCAT we welcome the distinguished Prof. Michael Janik from the Department of Chemical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. Mike earned his B.S. from Yale University and then had a brief stint in industry working at Procter and Gamble. He returned to academia and earned his Ph.D. from University of Virginia under Profs. Matthew Neurock and Robert Davis. Mike has won many awards, but the one that stands out is the Outstanding Advising Award from the Penn State Alumni Society, well deserved considering he was Tom's Ph.D. advisor. It is a pleasure to welcome Prof. Michael Janik on PodCAT!  

On this episode of PodCAT we welcome Prof. Yuriy Román from MIT. Yuriy Román is the Robert T. Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. Yuriy earned his B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002 and received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008, working under the supervision of Professor James A. Dumesic. He then moved to the California Institute of Technology to do postdoctoral research with Professor Mark E. Davis. Yuriy has won numerous prestigious awards throughout his career, including the recent 2024 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis from the North American Catalysis Society. It is a pleasure to have Yuriy as our guest on PodCAT!

On this episode of PodCAT we welcome Prof. Sheima Khatib from Virginia Tech. Sheima exemplifies the complete professor: successful research, top-notch teaching, and recognized service to the profession. For her research in natural gas upgrading she received the NSF CAREER award, for her teaching she received the Rawls Outstanding Undergraduate Educator award, and she was the 2023 programming chair for AICHE's Catalysis & Reaction Engineering (CRE) division. Sheima does it all!  

On this episode of PodCAT we welcome Prof. Alexis T. Bell. We discuss how Prof. Bell entered the field of catalysis and went out on a limb to secure a faculty position at UC Berkeley. We also discuss strategies for maintaining a successful research program and how to respond to reviewer comments. Fun fact, Prof. Bell was Ezra's PhD advisor! Prof. Bell is the Dow professor of Sustainable Chemistry in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a two time Department Chair. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prof. Bell has won numerous awards including the Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis and the Michel Boudart Award from the Catalysis Society.

Welcome to the new season of PodCAT! Our first episode of 2023-24 is a deep dive into submitting your first proposal. Where should you apply? What are strategies for dealing with rejection? No worries, PodCAT is here to help.

On this episode of PodCAT we welcome a very special guest, Prof. Cathleen Crudden. We discuss how Prof. Crudden entered the field of catalysis and rose to Editor in Chief of ACS Catalysis. We also discuss mentoring strategies and philosphies, with important tips for early career researchers. Prof. Crudden is the AV Douglas Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. She also holds a position as a Research Professor at Nagoya University in Japan. Since 2021, she has been the Editor in Chief of ACS Catalysis. Prof. Crudden is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Chemical Institute of Canada and Royal Society of Chemistry. She has earned more prestigious accolades than we can count and importantly, takes great pride in mentoring her students.   

What do you need to be successful? Estimating start-up costs and negotiating an offer is no sweat with PodCAT in your corner. Tune in for the last installment of our series on the faculty application process.

On this episode we welcome a very special guest, Prof. Paul Dauenhauer. We discuss details of how Prof. Dauenhauer became interested and excited about catalysis with some tips and strategies for early career researchers. Prof. Dauenhauer received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His PhD was under the guidance of Lanny Schmidt at University of Minnesota in Chemical Engineering. He is currently the Lanny & Charlotte Schmidt Professor at University of Minnesota in the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Department. His research group focuses on developing and understanding catalysts for biomass conversion, and more recently we've heard him pioneer topics of dynamic catalysis and catalytic condensers.

In this episode of PodCAT with Tom, Ezra and Marc we discuss tips and strategies for approaching the research seminar and chalk talk.

In this episode of PodCAT with Tom, Ezra and Marc we discuss tips and strategies for approaching the on campus interview. Good luck!

We are honored to have our very first guest, Prof. Jesse Bond. We discuss details of the faculty application process and getting involved with AIChE. Jesse Bond received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana State University, where he developed an interest in catalysis and reaction engineering. His PhD and Postdoctoral training were under the guidance of Thatcher Root and Jim Dumesic in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is presently a Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at Syracuse University. His research group focuses on developing and understanding catalytic technologies for upgrading abundant natural resources. He is a great guy and asset to the chemical engineering and catalysis community.