Weijian Diao is currently a Research Assistant Professor at University of South Carolina. He received his PhD at the University of South Carolina and did post-doctoral research at Idaho National Laboratory before returning to University of South Carolina. He has extensive experience in rational catalysts synthesis focusing on bimetallic catalysts for a wide range of applications including fuel cells, H2 production, chemical catalysis, and hydrocarbon refining. Current interests include metal oxide catalysts for selective oxidation reactions including olefin epoxidation and paraffin oxidative dehydrogenation. He is author of 14 refereed publications and has presented numerous talks at national meetings.
Dr Yanze Du is currently the director of the Hydrocracking Research Office of Dalian Petrochemical Research Institute. He is mainly responsible for technical development and application services such as hydrocracking, diesel hydro-upgrading, and hydrogen depressurization. He has won one second prize for national science and technology inventions, and more than 10 provincial and ministerial awards. He has published more than 40 papers and applied for more than 200 patents.
Dr Anne M. Gaffney is the Chief Science Officer and Distinguished Fellow at Idaho National Laboratory (2014–present). She has thirty-four years of experience working in industry inventing and commercializing new technologies for major chemical manufacturing companies including Koch Industries, Lummus Technology, Dow, Dupont and ARCO Chemical Company. She has authored 130 publications and 255 patents. Dr Gaffney is also a distinguished joint appointment fellow at the University of South Carolina (2018–present).
Lingjun Hu was born in China in 1990 and studied Materials Science and Engineering at Hainan University (China) where she received her bachelor diploma in 2012. Then, she moved to Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science (China) where she received her masters degree in 2015 under supervision of Prof. Hongfeng Yin. Afterwards, she joined Prof. Atsushi Urakawa group at Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (Spain) as a PhD student. Her PhD work focuses on novel approaches for efficient C1 chemistry process, involving CO2 hydrogenation and oxidative coupling of methane.
Dr Ben W.-L. Jang is a Professor at Department of Chemistry of Texas A&M U.-Commerce and also a Regents Professor in the Texas A&M University System. He was nominated for the 2012 NSF PAESMEM Award. He won the “Research Mentor of the Year” award at Texas A&M U.-Commerce in 2017. His recent research focuses on the selective hydrogenation performance of supported metal catalysts (Ni, Pd, Au) and bio-oil synthesis. He has been a guest editor in the journals Catalysis Today, Topics in Catalysis, Green Chemistry and Energy and Environmental Science. He published more than 50 papers and has been the Chair of symposia at ACS National Meetings.
Dr Ruifeng Li is a Professor at College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in Taiyuan University of Technology. He is a now member of Chinese Chemical Society and National Catalysis Professional Committee. He has 30 years’ research experience in the fields of industrial catalysts including metal oxides and zeolite synthesis and their application in deNOx, hydrocracking, and hydrogenation. He has published more than 80 papers and has got more than 20 financial supports from National Natural Science Foundation of China and Shanxi Province.
Yang Liu was born in 1986 in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, China. He received his Bachelor (2009) and PhD (2015) degrees respectively in Environmental Science and Physical Chemistry from Dalian University of Technology. He joined Tsinghua University in 2015 as a Postdoctoral Fellow, remaining there until 2017. He is now serving as an assistant professor in the School of Food and Environment, Dalian University of Technology. His research interests lie in environmental catalysis for air and water pollution control.
Jingjun Lu is currently a graduate student at Taiyuan University of Technology. He received his bachelor's degree in 2017. He studies the structural effects of Ni and CeO2 on Al2O3 in dry reforming of methane. He is a co-author of one paper published in Applied Catalysis B: Environmental.
Dr Michal Mazur received his MSc in chemistry from Jagiellonian University in Cracov, Poland. He completed his PhD under the supervision of prof. Jiří Čejka in the J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry in Prague, Czech Republic. He held a postdoctoral position at the University of St Andrews in Prof. Russell E. Morris's group. Currently, he is an assistant professor at Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, where he is managing the electron microscopy facility. He is interested in characterization methods, mainly electron diffraction and TEM. His research is focused on the synthesis, modifications, and application of materials, especially two-dimensional zeolites and MOFs.
John R. Monnier is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Carolina. In 2004, he retired as Technology Fellow at Eastman Chemical Company, the highest research position within the Company. During his industrial career he discovered and commercialized several chemical processes in areas including selective epoxidation, isomerization, and hydrogenation. He is author of more than 100 publications and 32 patents. Current interests at the University of South Carolina are in the areas of bimetallic catalyst synthesis using electroless deposition methods and applications for these families of catalysts. In 2017 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
Umit S. Ozkan is a College of Engineering Distinguished Professor and the Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Ohio State University. She received her PhD from Iowa State University in 1984 and joined the faculty of The Ohio State University in 1985. Between 2000 and 2005, she also served as the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering. Her current research interests are focused on heterogeneous catalysis and electro-catalysis. She has edited six books, has written over 200 refereed publications with over 10 000 citations, given over 350 conference presentations and over 150 invited lectures in 20 different countries and holds seven patents.
Paraskevi Panagiotopoulou is an Assistant Professor in the School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, and Director of the Environmental Catalysis Laboratory, which focuses in the area of heterogeneous catalysis with emphasis given in environmental and energy-related applications. She received her diploma in Chemical Engineering in 2001 and her M.Sc and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 2006 from the University of Patras. From 2006 to 2014 she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Patras and in the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, University of Delaware. She is the co-author of 45 articles in international refereed journals.
Donato Pinto was born in Italy in 1992. He got a Bachelor Degree in Materials Science at University of Bari (Italy). After a master degree in Materials Science at University of Padua (Italy), he worked there as research assistant on perovskite materials as catalysts for automotive gas exhausts abatement. He is currently a PhD candidate at TU Delft (Netherlands) in Chemical Engineering. His project involves the catalytic investigation of methane activation and high temperature oxidation reactions by means of in situ/operando spectroscopy.
Bo Qin graduates from Taiyuan University of Technology in 2007 with a major in industrial catalysis. He mainly studies the development and application of molecular sieve materials and hydrocracking catalysts. He participated in eight projects from China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation and two projects of the National Natural Science Foundation. He has made theoretical and technological understanding in the development of hydrocracking materials in industry.
Hengshan Qiu, born in 1978, Jiaozuo, China, received his PhD in physical chemistry at Ruhr-University Bochum in 2009 under the supervision of Dr Yuemin Wang and Prof. Christof Wöll. From 2009 to 2013, he worked as postdoc in Prof. Martin Muhler's group at Ruhr-University Bochum and later on in Prof. Hajo Freund's group at Fritz-Haber Institute. In 2013, he got a professor position at Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physical and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Then, he moved to Zhengzhou University working as a special-term professor in 2018. His research interests focus on surface science approach to reaction mechanism of heterogeneous catalysis and development of operando techniques.
Daniel N. Rainer obtained his BSc from the Vienna University of Technology and his MSc from the Technical University of Denmark. He is currently undertaking PhD studies at the University of St Andrews under the supervision of Prof. Russell E. Morris. His work focuses on the synthesis of zeolites obtained through the ADOR process, employing alternative methods such as mechanochemistry. A second focal point is the characterisation of materials with TEM and novel electron diffraction techniques.
John R. (JR) Regalbuto joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Carolina in 2011 as the Smartstate (endowed) Chair of the center of Catalysis for Renewable Fuels, after 25 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which included 3 years as a rotator directing the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program in the Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation. At USC he is directing his passion for rational catalyst synthesis toward the optimization of supported metal catalysts for biomass conversion. There he directs the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center, the Center for Rational Catalyst Synthesis (CeRCaS).
John Meynard M. Tengco is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina specializing in supported metal nanoparticle catalyst synthesis and characterization. He came to the University of South Carolina to earn his PhD after beginning his career as an undergraduate instructor at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. His graduate studies at the University of South Carolina involved integrative work on the specialty catalyst preparation methods of the Regalbuto and Monnier groups for preparation of well-dispersed bimetallic catalysts for renewable energy applications. Currently, he is author of 14 publications.
Atsushi Urakawa was born in Japan in 1976. He obtained his BSc degree at Kyushu University (Japan) and he studied at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) for MSc. He obtained his PhD from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) where he worked as a Senior Scientist and Lecturer until he joined ICIQ in Spain in 2010. In 2019, he decided to take a new challenge as Profeesor of Catalysis Engineering at Delft University of Technology. His research team combines fundamental and applied research and focuses on the rational development of heterogeneous catalysts and processes aided by in situ and operando spectroscopic methods.
Xenophon Verykios is Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras and Editor of Applied Catalysis B: Environmental. He studied at Bucknell University and Lehigh University. He taught at Drexel University as assistant and Associate Professor from 1979 to 1986. He then joined the University of Patras as Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the Heterogeneous Catalysis Laboratory. He has published over 200 papers in international refereed journals, as well as chapters in books and textbooks and he is the holder of fifteen patents. His research focuses on the areas of heterogeneous catalysis, photocatalysis and chemical reaction engineering.
Dr Huigang Wang received his PhD from Taiyuan University of Technology in 2017. He is currently working at SINOPEC Dalian Research Institute of Petroleum and Petrochemicals. He has published 7 papers. His research interests mainly include synthesis and application of hydrotreating catalysts.
Qianqian Wang is PhD candidate at Taiyuan University of Technology. She received his bachelor's degree in 2018 from Taiyuan University of Technology. She has participated in the project of synthesis of active and stable Ni catalysts from dry reforming of methane in low temperature region and is a co-author of one paper published in CrystEngComm.
Dr Xiaoliang Yan is an Associate Professor in College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of Taiyuan University of Technology. He is a visiting scholar at Texas A&M University-Commerce in 2011 and at University of Toronto in 2017. He has published 30 papers. He focuses on designing of supported Ni catalysts with high-performance in methanation, dry reforming, and supported Pd catalysts in selective acetylene hydrogenation. He also participates in finding a green and effective way to deposit the wasted and used catalysts (heavy metals) in petroleum-based and coal-based industry.
