Nicolas Abatzoglou is a Professor and ex-Head of the Department of Chemical & Biotechnological Engineering of the Université de Sherbrooke. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Saskatchewan and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is a specialist in process engineering involving particulate systems in reactive and non-reactive environments. He is the Director of the GRTP (Group of Research on Technologies and Processes). The GRTP operates a brand-new R&D and scale-up facility at the Université de Sherbrooke and is financed by both Canadian & Quebec institutional funding and industrial partners such as Rio Tinto Iron & Titane, KWI and Soleno. From May 2008 to March 2021, he was the holder of the Pfizer Industrial Research Chair in Pharmaceutical Processes. The highly successful output of this Chair led to a continuation of this association, which is now focusing on process intensification, analytical technology development and industrial applications. He has numerous collaborations and projects at the national and international level and he served as one of the leaders in Canada’s NCE Network BioFuelNet on Biorefining. He is presently the leader of the Canadian side of the project GOLD funded by Horizon 2020 and comprising 18 partners from the EU, China and Canada. He is an expert in the development of new formulations in heterogeneous catalysis as well as catalytic reactor engineering and his R&D work comprises g-lab and kg-lab test rigs and scaleup. He is a co-founder of the company Enerkem Technologies, precursor of Enerkem, a spin-off commercializing technology in the field of energy from renewable resources. He has received many academic and professional awards and he is a world-renowned researcher and technology transfer expert. His scientific output includes 200+ publications, reviews, conferences, keynotes, plenaries and invited lectures, patents and three book chapters.

Ashraf Abedin is a Research Scientist working with the Reaction Engineering team at the U.S. Department of Energy – NETL, Morgantown, WV. He completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering at Louisiana State University in 2021. His expertise includes research in the field of energy and catalysis. Ashraf is currently working at NETL to develop a microwave system for catalytic plastic gasification to produce clean energy. His other research projects include natural gas utilization, CO₂ reduction and capture, critical minerals extraction, polymer waste pyrolysis, etc.

Ines Esma Achouri is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biotechnological Engineering at Université de Sherbrooke, specializing in pharmaceutical and chemical processing. She serves as the co-director of the GRTP (Group of Research on Technologies and Processes), overseeing a cutting-edge facility designed for scaled-up processes and technology demonstration. Her leadership has attracted new partnerships with industrial players such as Teregeo Minerals and CRB innovations, fostering innovative solutions within the field. Since April 2021, Dr Achouri has held the prestigious Canadian Research Chair (Tier II) in Process Intensification for Advanced Materials and Sustainable Energy. Her academic journey is characterized by a multidisciplinary background, encompassing expertise in process engineering, tailored materials, and waste valorization. Dr Achouri’s background began with focus on pharmaceutical process engineering in Algeria at Université de Constantine 3, then a Master’s in France at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, followed by a PhD on catalysis for energy vector production at Université de Sherbrooke. Before joining the faculty members of Université de Sherbrooke, Dr Achouri was a postdoctoral researcher at École Polytechnique de Montréal, where she was awarded an Excellence Scholarship from the Government of Québec. Dr Achouri was nominated as the Chair of the Energy Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada, actively promoting the division activities and contributing to the organization of events like the Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference 2023 in Calgary and the Canadian Symposium of Catalysis 2024.

Dalia Allouss is a PhD candidate in chemical engineering under the supervision of Professors Abatzoglou and Achouri in the Chemical and Biotechnological Engineering Department at the University of Sherbrooke, QC, Canada. She obtained her PhD degree in materials chemistry and chemometrics from the Faculty of Sciences and Techniques Mohammedia at Hassan II University of Casablanca, Morocco, in 2022. In 2021, she had the opportunity to undertake an internship at the EPFL Valais Wallis campus in Sion, Switzerland, specifically at the LFIM laboratory, as a visiting PhD student. During this internship, she worked on the synthesis of hydrogel beads using microfluidic picoinjection. Dalia’s current research interests encompass biomass valorization, the circular economy, synthesis of materials-based hydrogel beads, and their applications in wastewater treatment. She has authored one book chapter on polysaccharide-based hydrogel beads and several peer-reviewed papers.

Xinwei Bai is an Electromagnetic Catalysis Engineer working at National Energy Technology Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Morgantown, WV, USA. He received his BS at the Ohio State University (2016) and his PhD at West Virginia University (2021), both in Chemical Engineering. Dr Bai’s research interests include microwave-assisted chemical reaction engineering, heterogeneous catalysis, natural gas conversion, plastic waste upcycling, and chemical looping processes.

Antara Bhowmick received her BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Currently she is a PhD student in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE. Her research focuses on developing zeolite-based catalysts and novel catalytic membrane reactors for light alkane dehydrogenation reactions.

Lina Bird received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013. She performed postdoctoral research at the University of Southern California before joining the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, first as a Postdoctoral Associate and then as a Research Biologist. She works with a variety of environmentally relevant microorganisms, with a particular focus on microbial electrochemistry and redox reactions.

William T. Broomhead is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto in Toronto, ON, Canada, under the research supervision of Professor Cathy Chin. He received Bachelor of Chemical Engineering and Bachelor of Science in Chemistry degrees from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities in 2019. His research focuses on establishing fundamental insight into the redox and acid sites of multifunctional transition metal oxides and understanding the catalytic functions of these sites in the upgrading of alkanol molecules.

Christopher Chervin is a Program Manager at the U.S. Department of Energy in the Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Before joining BES, Dr Chervin was a Research Chemist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory where his work encompassed the design, synthesis, and application of nanostructured materials and electrode architectures for energy storage and conversion devices and catalytic chemistries. As a National Research Council Fellow, Chervin received his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of California at Davis before joining the NRL initially as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Associate.

Ya-Huei (Cathy) Chin is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Advanced Catalysis for Sustainable Chemistry at University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. She received BS and MS degrees from the University of Oklahoma and her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in Chemical Engineering. She is most passionate about understanding the catalytic science in sustainable fuel synthesis—interpreting the reactions as catalytic dance steps, understanding the microenvironment required for evolving the kinetically relevant transition states. In particular, her group examines the dynamics of active sites and their catalytic roles in response to changing chemical potentials and local reaction environment with advanced kinetic and spectroscopic techniques in hydrodeoxygenation, partial and total oxidation, and reduction reactions.

Chonlong Chio (Chris) is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Biology Department at Lakehead University. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Biological Science from Sun Yat-Sen University, a Master of Science in Biochemical and Biomedical Science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a PhD in Biotechnology from Lakehead University. His current research interests focus on biomass utilization, particularly the utilization of lignin and hemicellulose, as well as environmental science, employing techniques from microbiology and genetic engineering.

Ryan DeBlock received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from UCLA in 2020. He currently conducts research at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in the Advanced Electrochemical Materials Section. Recent scientific efforts include development of aqueous, zinc-based batteries and characterization of disordered energy-storage materials using in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy.

Biswanath Dutta is a Research Scientist at the National Energy Technology Laboratory. His research interests lie in the synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of novel catalytic materials for thermal and microwave assisted reactions and understanding heterogeneous catalytic processes at the atomic level. He received his BSc degree in chemistry from the University of Calcutta in 2011, MSc degree in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2013, and doctoral degree in chemistry from the University of Connecticut in 2018. After his PhD, he did his postdoctoral research at the University of California Berkeley (2018–2020) and at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (2020–2021), focusing on the synthesis and characterization of novel oxide and carbide materials for oxidative and non-oxidative dehydrogenation processes. He has co-authored more than 20 publications and U.S. patents. His current research encompasses topics like NH₃ synthesis and decomposition, CO₂ hydrogenation and plastic degradation and is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Jing-Tan Han received his BSc degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Shanghai, China) in 2020. As of now, he is a PhD candidate in the Chemistry department of McGill University under the supervision of Prof. Chao-Jun Li. His research centers on the development of efficient methodologies for chemical transformations through photocatalysis.

Daniel Haynes is a research engineer at the National Energy Technology Lab. He received his PhD from West Virginia University in Chemical Engineering in 2017. He currently serves as the portfolio lead for the internal Natural Gas Decarbonization and Hydrogen Technologies program, which consists of 11 tasks related to clean hydrogen production and transport. He also serves as Principal Investigator for several projects using microwaves in various applications that range from natural gas conversion to hydrogen separation. His current research interests focus on the development of thermal and microwave-based heterogeneous catalytic processes to produce sustainable chemicals and fuels from waste resources like natural gas, CO₂ and renewables.

Zi-Hua Jiang is a full Professor of Chemistry at Lakehead University, Canada. He obtained his PhD degree in Chemistry from the University of Konstanz, Germany and received post-doctoral training at the University of Alberta, Canada. His research interests include the synthesis and biological studies of C-aryl glycosides and synthetic vaccine adjuvants.

Swarom Kanitkar is a Research Scientist at Leidos and provides research support to the Reaction Engineering Team at U.S. Department of Energy – NETL (National Energy Technology Laboratory), Morgantown. Before working for Leidos, he worked as a postdoctoral participant at NETL where he developed reactive particle-based sensors for thermal measurements inside coal boilers. He obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana State University in 2019 specializing in natural gas conversion to value added chemicals over solid acid catalysts. He obtained his M.S. from University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2014 specializing in modeling and analysis of production of propylene glycol. His current areas of research include catalytic conversion of natural gas and carbon dioxide, advanced manufacturing in catalysis, microwave assisted catalysis, and reactive particle-based sensors. He has co-authored 19 peer-reviewed publications and 3 US patents.

Janak Khatiwada is a PhD scholar in Biotechnology at Lakehead University, Canada. He completed his previous PhD in Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. His work has been published in various scientific journals, focusing on topics related to waste management, bioremediation, and the utilization of wastewater for various applications. His research interest focuses on the utilization of microalgae for wastewater treatment and subsequent biofuel production.

Aristide Laurel Mokale Kognou earned his 1st PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Douala (Cameroon) and 2nd PhD in Biotechnology from Lakehead University (Canada) in 2017 and 2022. He has been recognized with awards, scholarships and publications. His overarching research interests focus on plant-based cell factories and bioactive component extraction assisted with microbial enzymes.

Chao-Jun Li received his PhD at McGill University (1992) and did NSERC postdoctoral research at Stanford University (1992–94). He was on the faculty at Tulane University (1994–2003), and then a Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Green Chemistry and an E. B. Eddy Chair at McGill University. He serves as the Co-Director of the FQRNT Center for Green Chemistry/Catalysis and has received numerous prestigious awards worldwide, including the US Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2001), Humboldt Research Award (2021), and the CIC Medal (2022) among others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the World Academy of Science (TWAS), European Academy of Sciences, AAAS, RSC, CIC, ACS and CCS.

Gengnan Li received her PhD in materials science and engineering at the East China University of Science and Technology. As a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Daniel E. Resasco’s group, she investigated catalytic systems for biofuel upgrading through combined material synthesis, reaction kinetics and computational simulations.

Dongxia Liu has been a Robert K. Grasselli Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware since 2023. She directs the Materials Synthesis and Catalysis Lab, developing nanostructured materials for catalyst, membrane and reactor technologies to address the challenges in renewable energy and chemical production. Dr Liu obtained her PhD degree from University of Rochester in 2009 and then worked as a post-doctoral fellow at University of Minnesota. In 2012, she started her faculty career at University of Maryland and worked there till 2022. She has authored more than 90 journal articles and 7 issued/pending patents.

Lu Liu is a PhD student in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland – College Park. As an undergraduate student at Tianjin University, she gained research experience in engineering nanomaterials for CO₂ reduction. Upon entering graduate school at UMD, she began studying molecularly selective synthetic membranes at the Sustainable Separations Lab. Her graduate research focuses on applying carbon molecular sieve hollow fiber membranes in packed bed reactors for intensified process reaction and separation.

Jeffrey Long is a Research Chemist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Long earned his PhD in Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1997, after which he joined the NRL as a postdoctoral researcher and then staff scientist. He has 25 years of experience in the development, characterization, and validation of new materials for electrochemical energy/storage conversion, catalysis, and water treatment.

Zachary Neale received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2020. He has worked as a research scientist and engineer at Toyota Technical Center and Honeywell Aerospace, and currently is a National Research Council Postdoctoral Associate at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. His research is in advanced electrochemical materials for energy storage, water treatment, and magnetohydrodynamic propulsion.

Travis Novak is a Materials Research Engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from KAIST in 2020, after which he joined the Advanced Electrochemical Materials Section at NRL as a Postdoctoral Associate. His current research focuses on the development of aerogel-based catalysts for various reactions, including hydrogen production/purification processes and neutralization of chemical warfare agents.

Ying Pan was a visiting PhD student in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. She obtained Masters and PhD degrees at Tiangong University (China). In her Masters study, her research was focused on polymeric membrane fabrication and modification for water purification. During her PhD study, she was awarded a Chinese Government Scholarship to sponsor her study at UMD, where she focused on development of catalysts and membranes for non-oxidative light alkane dehydrogenation. After graduation, she joined Zhuhai Chenyu New Materials Technology Co., Ltd as an advanced research engineer.

Wensheng Qin at Lakehead University in Canada received his Bachelor and Master’s degrees from the Faculty of Agriculture and Biotechnology at Zhejiang University in China. Then he worked at Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences and conducted visiting research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He earned his PhD degree in Molecular Biotechnology from Queen’s University in Canada. He received his postdoctoral training at Stanford University in the USA in Genetics and Biotechnology. He also worked at the University of Waterloo and University of Toronto in Canada, the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico, and Kansas State University and Yale University in the USA. Qin joined Lakehead University in 2008 as an assistant professor in biotechnology and Ontario Research Chair in Biorefining Research (2008–2013). He holds expertise in molecular biology, microbial engineering, fermentation, and biomass bioconversion for bioproducts. Qin was an associate editor for two UK Journals. Qin has published over 160 peer-reviewed papers. His lab website is https://wqin.lakeheadu.ca.

Daniel Resasco received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina (1975) and his PhD from Yale University (1984). He holds the Inaugural Gallogly Chair of Engineering and George Lynn Cross Professor at the University of Oklahoma. His research group focuses on understanding the relationship between the catalytic performance and the microscopic structure and composition of the material, in addition to the links between the synthesis process and the final catalyst.

Debra Rolison heads the Advanced Electrochemical Materials at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. Her team designs, synthesizes, characterizes, and applies ultraporous, multifunctional, hold-in-your-hand nanoarchitectures for such rate-critical applications as catalysis, energy storage, and sensors. Rolison was a Faculty Scholar at Florida Atlantic University (1972–1975; B.S. Chemistry) and received her PhD (Chemistry) from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1980. She joined NRL as a staff scientist in 1980.

Sarita Shrestha is a PhD graduate in Biotechnology, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. She completed her BSc and MSc in Microbiology at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. She has published more than two dozen manuscripts in various peer-reviewed journals including book chapters and review articles. Her interest spans around microbiology and biotechnology for the sustainable development of value-added products from waste and for agricultural waste valorization.

Hui Su received her B.S. degree from Hefei University of Technology in 2014. Then, she joined Dr Jie-Sheng Chen and Dr Xin-Hao Li’s research group at Shanghai Jiao Tong University to study nanomaterial science and received her PhD in 2020 with the project of rectifying contact and catalytic performance of transition-metal/N-doped carbon heterojunctions. Since 2021, she has been working on green conversion and functionalization of small molecules as a postdoctoral scholar with Dr Chao-Jun Li at McGill University.

Lida Tan obtained his BSc from University of Toronto in 2018. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD degree at McGill University under the supervision of Prof. Chao-Jun Li. His research interest is focused on chemical transformations using gallium nitride (GaN) based catalysis.

Chunbao (Charles) Xu is currently a Chair Professor of Advanced Biorefinery at City University of Hong Kong, a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada (FCIC) and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (FCAE). He was a tenured Full Professor between July 2014 and June 2023 and the NSERC/FPInnovations Industrial Research Chair in Forest Biorefinery (2011–2016) at Western University, acquiring an international reputation for research, innovations and industrial applications of high-value bioproducts from renewable resources, particularly development of bio-based chemicals and materials from forestry/ agricultural residues, catalytic conversion of glycerol and sugars into green hydrogen chemicals, and resource recovery from wastewater sludge and microalgae. He has authored/edited 3 books on biorefinery, and published 20+ book chapters and 300+ papers in peer-reviewed journals. According to Google Scholar, his work has received over 17,000 total citations with an H-index of 72 to date, and he was ranked among the 100,000 most-cited scientists in the world in 2019 and the top 2 percent of their sub-fields (0.22% in the energy sub-field). With 16 PCT/US/Canadian/Chinese Patents issued/pending, Dr Xu has made outstanding contributions to applied science and engineering practice. He was the recipient of the 2011 Syncrude Canada Innovation Award and the 2019 Award in Design and Industrial Practice from the Canadian Society of Chemical Engineering. He is serving as a co-Editor-In-Chief for International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering (IJCRE) and an Associate Editor for Biomass and Bioenergy, as well as Resources Chemicals and Materials.

Chen Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He obtained his B.Sc. at Nanjing Tech University (China), M.Sc. at Tianjin University (China), and PhD at the Georgia Institute of Technology (U.S.A.), all in Chemical Engineering. After completing post-doctoral training, he joined the faculty of University of Maryland in 2018 and is directing the Sustainable Separations Lab. His present research interests are focused on polymer and nanoporous membranes, sorbents, and hollow fiber membrane reactors. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2021.