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CENTC Advisory Board

	John Briggs received his Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of Leeds, UK under the guidance of Professor Bernard L. Shaw working on the activation of small molecules by late transition metal complexes. In 1982, he joined Union Carbide at the South Charleston Technical Center in the Catalyst Skill Center where he worked on the discovery and development of a variety of transition metal catalyzed technologies particularly olefin chain chemistry such as oligomerization and hydroformylation. In 2001, Briggs joined The Dow Chemical Company first in South Charleston, then moved to Midland Michigan in 2005, where he achieved the position of Dow Fellow in Core R&D. He has continued to work primarily in homogeneous catalysis and has recently become interested in the development of new catalysis for the conversion of renewable feedstocks to specialty and commodity chemicals.

	Emilio Bunel received his Ph.D. at Caltech with Prof. John Bercaw after completing his Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Chile. He has held research positions related to catalysis at DuPont, Eli Lilly, Amgen and Pfizer before joining the Argonne National Labs. In 2008, he was named Director of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at ANL. His research interests include: Organometallic synthesis with particular emphasis on applications to homogeneous catalysis, in-situ characterization techniques, high throughput techniques applied to catalyst discovery, and catalysis applied to energy problems such as carbon dioxide activation and water splitting.

	Charles P. Casey received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1967 where he did graduate research with George M. Whitesides on organocopper compounds. In 1968, he joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is now Homer B. Adkins Emeritus Professor of Chemistry. Professor Casey's research focuses on mechanistic organometallic chemistry. The mechanisms of important catalytic processes including hydroformylation, hydrogenation, and alkene polymerization have been explored. He is currently working on new hydrogenation catalysts that operate by simultaneous delivery of a hydride and a proton to polar substrates. He is author of more than 250 papers in organometallic chemistry and served as President of the American Chemical Society in 2004.

	Rich Cherpeck received his B.A. from Rice University completing three years of undergraduate research with Prof. Robert V. Stevens. He then completed his Ph.D. studies at Caltech studying under Professor David A. Evans. He joined the Ortho Division of the Chevron Chemical Company in 1980 before transferring to Chevron Oronite Company in 1990 where he is a Consulting Scientist working on fuel and lubricating oil additives. His commercial products include the fuel additive Techron®. He is an inventor on more than 80 US patents

	Anne M. Gaffney received her BA in Chemistry and Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College in 1976 and her Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry in 1981. She has been working it the chemical industry for nearly 30 years in areas of process chemistry, catalysis, selective oxidation, “green chemistry”, clean energy and sustainability. She recently retired from Lummus Technology in March 2010 where she held the position of VP of Technology and was responsible for leading the commercialization of new catalysts and improved metathesis processing of olefins. At LT Anne also developed a new alkylation process called AlkyClean with a “green” heterogeneous catalyst; this process was acknowledged with the 2009 ACS Award for Affordable Green Chemistry. Prior to LT, Anne was a Senior Research Fellow where she worked on developing new catalysts and processes for the selective oxidation of hydrocarbons. Anne has over 200 patents and patent applications, over 80 publications and has given close to 90 seminars. She was selected as an ACS Fellow in 2010 and received the ACS Distinguished Service Award in Petroleum Chemistry, also in 2010. She co-founded the Catalysis Division of ACS in 2009. Since her retirement from LT, Anne has founded AMG Chemistry and Catalysis Consulting, LLC, co-founded the Langmuir Research Institute, and has consulted for various companies, including Air Liquide, Anellotech and NanoSelect. In January 2011 Anne became the R&D Director of Specialty Materials at Invista.

	Edward Grabowski received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in 1965 before joining the Process Research Department at the Merck Research Labs. He recently retired as Vice President of Chemistry (Process Research) after over 38 years at Merck & Co. He now serves as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, recently completed an eight year term as a member of the Organic Synthesis Editorial Board, and served as an Advisory Board Member and Chair of the ACS Petroleum Research Fund. Dr. Grabowski is a co-author on approximately 100 research papers and reviews, a co-inventor on more than 50 US patents, and has presented over 150 invited lectures at symposia and universities over the years. His research interests were program-driven and are focused on the design and development of practical syntheses of MRL’s drug candidates and products. They have encompassed contributions in synthetic and physical organic chemistry.

	Jennifer Holmgren is the Chief Executive Officer of LanzaTech. Jennifer has over 20 years of experience in the energy sector including a proven track record in the development and commercialization of fuels and chemicals technologies. Prior to joining LanzaTech, she was Vice President and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. In that role, she led UOP’s renewable business from its inception through to the achievement of significant revenues from the commercialization of multiple novel biofuels technologies. Dr. Jennifer Holmgren holds a B.Sc. degree from Harvey Mudd College, a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the University of Chicago. She currently serves on multiple external advisory boards. She is the author or co-author of 50 US patents, 20 scientific publications and is the 2003 recipient of the Council for Chemical Research’s (CCR) Malcolm E. Pruitt Award.

	Shane W. Krska began his training in chemistry at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, where he received his B.S. in 1992. He obtained his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at MIT in 1997 under the direction of Dietmar Seyferth, his thesis work involving the synthesis of main group organometallic polymers and dendrimers. From 1997 to 1999, he conducted postdoctoral research with Professor Robert G. Bergman at U.C. Berkeley on the synthesis and reactivity of early transition metal imido complexes. Dr. Krska began his industrial career at Merck Research Laboratories in 1999. In 2002, he helped found the Merck Catalysis Laboratory and currently serves as its senior scientific supervisor. His research interests center around applications of transition metal catalysis to pharmaceutical synthesis and the use of high-throughput experimentation to accelerate reaction development. He has authored or co-authored 30 scientific publications and six patents, and was named an ACS Young Industrial Investigator in 2008.

	Jeffrey J. Scheibel joined The Procter & Gamble in 1986 after receiving his PhD in Physical Organic Chemistry from Indiana University studying free radical transformations and chemical models for coal liquefaction. He is currently a Principal Scientist at P&G and has over 84 US and 30 European granted patents with numerous pending. He has given lectures at multiple universities and has published reviews and articles in various journal publications. Jeff has spent 22 years developing new surfactant and polymer technology in the Fabric and Home Care Technology Division at P&G, and in 2007 was the recipient of the AOCS Rosen Award for contributions to surfactant science in industry. For the last 2.5 years, as the chemistry team technical leader of the Sustainable Materials Group in the Materials Science and Technology Division at P&G, Jeff has championed sustainability via the identification of new alternatives for P&G raw materials such as Sugars for fermentation/Chemistry, Algae and Biomass to Liquids (BTL). He implemented Green Chemistry principals at P&G. He is currently working on new ways to convert natural feedstocks into synthetic detergent ingredients as well as bioplastics replacing today’s petroleum derived feedstocks. He has served in the past as an associate editor on the Journal of Surfactants and Detergents and is currently a member of both the AOCS and ACS. He has served as P&G’s representative on the IAB (Industrial Advisory Board) at the CEBC (Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis) located at the University of Kansas. He has also served as an elected member by the IAB on the ETAC board at CEBC. He is now serving on the advisory board of the NAABB (National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts).

Previous Advisory Board Members


	Bob Hembre completed his Ph.D. studies at Colorado State University, studying with Jack Norton, after receiving his M.S. from the University of Wisconsin (with Charles Casey). He was an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska before joining the Eastman Chemical Company. He is currently a Principal Research Chemist at Eastman.

	Bill Schinski completed his Ph.D. studies (organic chemistry major; dual physical and biochemistry minors) at Rutgers U., New Brunswick, NJ in 1968 under Prof. Ron Sauers. His thesis research described a novel photochemical synthesis and solvolysis of highly strained “staranes” (five-membered ring homologues of adamantanes). He conducted post-doctoral research under Prof. Barry Trost at the University of Wisconsin during 1968-69, demonstrating the d-orbital mechanism for a sulfur extrusion reaction in a stereo-selective conversion of thietanes to cyclopropanes. Dr. Schinski joined the Ortho Division of the Chevron Chemical Company in 1969 before transferring to the Catalyst Group for the Chevron Research and Technology Company in 1994. He acted as a planning consultant with Chevron’s Corporate-funded Strategic Research Program to establish major research initiatives in Bioprocessing, Homogeneous Catalysis, Facilitated and Ionic Transport Membrane Reactors, Microchannel Reactors, Ionic Liquid Processing, Fullerene Synthesis/Applications, Diamondoid Synthesis, Direct Methane Conversion and Hydrocarbon Functionalization. He retired from Chevron in 2005 and now serves as a consultant.