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...
info_outlinePodCAT
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...
info_outlinePodCAT
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...
info_outlinePodCAT
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...
info_outlinePodCAT
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,...
info_outlinePodCAT
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...
info_outlinePodCAT
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...
info_outlinePodCAT
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...
info_outlinePodCAT
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...
info_outlinePodCAT
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....
info_outlineDr. 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.