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CENTC
Advisory Board

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Robert G. Bergman
completed his undergraduate studies in chemistry
at Carleton College in l963 and received his
Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in l966
under the direction of Jerome A. Berson. Bergman
spent l966-67 as a North Atlantic Treaty
Organization Fellow in Ronald Breslow's
laboratories at Columbia, and following that
began his independent career at the California
Institute of Technology. He accepted an
appointment as professor of chemistry at the
University of California, Berkeley, in July
l977, and moved his research group to Berkeley
about a year later. In 2002 he was appointed
Gerald E. K. Branch Distinguished Professor. He
has received a number of national awards and has
co-authored more than 500 publications in
peer-reviewed journals.
Bergman was trained as an organic chemist and
spent the first part of his independent career
studying reaction mechanisms that involve
unusually reactive molecules, such as
1,3-diradicals and vinyl cations. In 1972 he
discovered a transformation of ene-diynes that
was later identified as a crucial DNA-cleaving
reaction in several antibiotics that bind to
nucleic acids. In the mid-l970's Bergman’s
research broadened to include organometallic
chemistry, which led to contributions to the
development and study of the reaction mechanisms
of migratory insertion and oxidative addition
reactions, the chemistry of new dinuclear
complexes, and the investigation of
organometallic compounds having metal-oxygen and
-nitrogen bonds. He is probably best known for
his discovery of the first soluble
organometallic complexes that undergo
intermolecular insertion of transition metals
into the carbon-hydrogen bonds of alkanes. Most
recently he has been involved in collaborative
studies directed at applications of catalytic
C-H activation reactions in organic synthesis,
reactions catalyzed by supramolecular systems,
and methods for the conversion of polyhydroxy
compounds into materials currently derived from
petroleum.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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Previous
Advisory
Board Members
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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