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People
Center Management
Paul Gilna
Center Director
Dr. Paul Gilna comes to the DOE BESC director’s position from the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology and the Center for Research in Biological Systems, both located at the University of California, San Diego. At San Diego he served as executive director for the Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Marine Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis project. Previously, Dr. Gilna was director of the Joint Genome Institute at Los Alamos National Laboratory and has worked at the National Science Foundation. His research interests range from molecular biology to microbiology to computational biology.
Barry Berven
Dr. Berven serves as the DOE BESC Operations Manager. Compliance with environmental, safety, health and security rules, regulations and laws will be the responsibility of every researcher assigned to the Center. Dr. Berven is a biologist with over 15 years experience in management of biological research.
Alan Darvill
Professor Darvill is Focus Area Head for Biomass Formation and Modification in BESC. He is Regents Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Plant Biology at the University of Georgia (UGA). He brings to his role in BESC more than 35 years studying the structure and function of plant cell walls (biomass). He is also the Director of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at UGA.
Brian Davison
Dr. Davison is the coordinator for Biomass Characterization and Modeling. He is the Chief Scientist for Systems Biology and Biotechnology at ORNL. He has managed individual and multi-institutional projects. He has authored over 100 publications and six patents, including one of the first reports that genetic variation in poplar composition can affect hydrolysis.
Suzy Fowler
Ms. Fowler is the DOE BESC Technical Project Manager. She is responsible for implementing management processes to include assuring that project milestones are coordinated and that project goals are met and communicated in a timely manner. Ms Fowler brings over 15 years of diverse management experience in both the government contractor and commercial sectors. She holds a MS degree in Business Administration and a BS degree in Biochemistry.
Lee Lynd
Dr. Lynd coordinates Biomass Deconstruction and Conversion research. Dr. Lynd is Professor of Engineering and Biological Sciences at Dartmouth College. He is a recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award as well as a two-time recipient of the Charles A. Lindbergh Award for his efforts to promote balance between technological progress and preservation of the natural and human environments. He has been awarded the Charles D. Scott award for outstanding contributions to the field of biotechnology for fuels and chemicals and is the Inaugural winner of the Lemelson-MIT Sustainability Award.
Dennis Parton
Mr. Parton serves as the DOE BESC Deputy Director for Finance and Business Management, responsible for procurement and management of the center finances. He is the ORNL business/financial manager for the Biological and Environmental Sciences directorate.
Renae Speck
Dr. Renae Speck is the Commercialization Manager for BESC. Renae is responsible for portfolio management and commercialization of intellectual property created by researchers and staff in the Biological and Environmental Sciences Directorate and the Nuclear Science and Technology Division. Renae also manages the proposal, award, and reporting processes for technology maturation funds. Renae earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a Bachelor of Science degree in Recombinant Genetics and Chemistry from Western Kentucky University.
Key Research Personnel and Expertise
Michael Adams
Michael Adams is a Distinguished Research Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Microbiology at University of Georgia and has directed research to elucidate the novel biochemistry and microbiology of anaerobic thermophiles for more than 25 years. He has published over 250 papers in refereed journals and edited seven books.
Jeffrey Bennetzen
Jeffrey Bennetzen currently serves as the Giles Professor of Molecular Biology and Functional Genomics in the Department of Genetics at the University of Georgia. He has spent his career teasing out the intricacies of plant genomes with respect to their gene number, arrangement and evolutionary traits.
Mark Davis
Mark Davis (NREL) is combining multivariate statistical data analysis and spectroscopic methods such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), pyrolysis-molecular beam mass spectrometry (PyMBMS) and near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) to determine changes in plant cell wall chemistry dueto transgenic modification.
Richard Dixon
Dr. Dixon is Senior Vice President, Professor and Director of the Plant Biology Division at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. Dr. Dixon founded the Plant Biology Division at the Noble Foundation in 1988 and has built it into one of the world’s leading institutes for molecular plant sciences. [Read more]
Michael Himmel
Dr. Michael Himmel, Principal Scientist at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), brings to his role in BESC more than 25 years of experience establishing and leading successful DOE projects and laboratories. He is the Principal Supervisor of the Bimolecular Sciences Section within the Energy Sciences Directorate at NREL
Igor Jouline (Zhulin)
Igor Jouline (Zhulin) is Senior R&D Staff Member in Computer Science and Mathematics at ORNL and Associate Professor of Microbiology at the University of Tennessee. He has authored over 50 papers in leading journals that have been cited more than 1,500 times.
Debra Mohnen
Dr. Mohnen is the Lead in Plant Cell Wall Biosynthesis Research and Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at the University of Georgia. She brings the BESC over 17 years experience in plant cell wall synthesis and function.
Arthur Ragauskas
Dr. Ragauskas started his academic career in 1989 as an Assistant Professor of Wood Chemistry at the Institute of Paper Science and Technology. He was promoted to Professor of Wood Chemistry and in 2003 transferred to the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology. He has published 140 peer-reviewed papers, and another 130 conference proceedings. On May 23, 2008 Professor Ragauskas was selected as the first holder of the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Alternative Energy Technology at Chalmers University. [View Press Release]
Gary Sayler
Gary Sayler, Director, UT-ORNL Joint Institute for Biological Sciences. Dr. Sayler is Beaman, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has edited five books and contributed 285 publications in broad areas of molecular biology, environmental microbiology, biodegradation of PCB, PAH, BTEX and TCE and biotechnology.
Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith is Governor’s Chair at the University of Tennessee and Director of the ORNL Center for Molecular Biophysics. He specializes in high-performance computer simulation of biological systems and also pioneered the combination of neutron scattering experiments with molecular dynamics simulation in the investigation of the dynamics of biomolecules.
Neal Stewart
Neal Stewart holds the Racheff Chair of Excellence in plant molecular genetics and is a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Stewart has degrees from North Carolina State (BS) and Virginia Tech (MS and PhD) with postdoctoral experiences at the University of Georgia.
Tim Tschaplinski
Tim Tschaplinski is Distinguished Scientist in ORNL’s Environmental Sciences Division. He has more than 28 years of experience in plant physiology, specifically in the application of chromatographic analyses to research problems in genomics, systems biology and bioenergy crop production.
Gerald Tuskan
Gerald Tuskan, Distinguished Scientist, Plant Genetics Group, Environmental Sciences Division, ORNL, has more than 15 years experience leading and working with DOE on the development of biomass feedstocks, Dr. Tuskan is the DOE lead for the Laboratory Sciences Program at the Joint Genome Institute and is the project leader of the International Populus Genome Consortium.
Edward Uberbacher
Edward Uberbacher, as Chief Scientist for Computational Biology at ORNL, brings 20 years experience in areas of structural biology, bioinformatics, molecular computation to his role as the coordinator for CBES Computational Biology at IT Infrastructure. As founder of the Computational Biology Program at ORNL in 1992, he has directed numerous DOE and NIH activities related to genome analysis, molecular structure and biophysics.
Janet Westpheling
Janet Westpheling is a professor at the University of Georgia within the Department of Genetics. She has more than 25 years experience in microbial conversion with specific interest in Streptomyces. Her research in this area include investigation of how these complex metabolic and developmental processes interact involves characterization of the regulatory mechanisms that control the transcriptional activity of genes involved in carbohydrate utilization.
Charles Wyman
Dr. Charles Wyman is the Ford Motor Company Chair in Environmental Engineering at the University of California in Riverside. Since 1980, he has devoted his career almost exclusively to biological conversion of abundant and inexpensive cellulosic biomass to commodity products including ethanol for use as a transportation fuel based on his conviction that modern biotechnology provides a powerful tool for cost-competitive, sustainable production of ethanol and other fuels and chemicals with unique and powerful environmental, economic, and strategic benefits. [Read more]
Ying Xu
Ying Xu is a professor and the Regents-Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar chair of bioinformatics and computational biology in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, and the director of the Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia. Before joining UGA, he was a senior staff scientist and group leader at ORNL, where he still holds a joint position.
William York
William York is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Plant Biology and Computer Sciences at the University of Georgia. He has a distinguished research program focused on the development and application of spectroscopic, computational and informatic methods for analysis of the structures and conformations of complex carbohydrates in primary cell walls.
Individual Participants
John Brady
John Brady, Professor in the Department of Food Science, Cornell University. Brady is an expert in cellulose structure and in modeling of the interactions of cellulase and cellulose. His group studies the dynamics and hydration of biopolymers, and of the relationship between structure, conformation and function in biological systems.
Daniel van der Lelie
Daniel van der Lelie, Senior Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Dr. van der Lelie is an expert in the characterization of plant-associated microbes and the Diversity, structure and functional interdependence of microbial communities.
Norman Lewis
Norman Lewis, Director of the Institute of Biological Chemistry and Professor, Washington State University. Lewis is a leader in phenylpropanoid metabolism for lignins, lignans, allyl/propenyl phenols, with a particular emphasis toward understanding vascular plant cell wall formation.
Robert M. Kelly
Robert M Kelly, Alcoa Chair Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. He is also the Director of the NCSU Biotechnology Program. Kelly is recognized as a world leader in extremophiles – the physiology, enzymology and biotechnological potential of microorganisms that thrive in extreme environments.
Simo Sarkanen
Simo Sarkanen, Professor, Department of Biobased Products, University of Minnesota. Sarkanen’s active research interests fall withing the area of lignin chemistry and biochemistry. The goal is a clearer understanding of lignin biodegradation as a vehicle for producing the first true lignin degrading enzyme that biobleaches chemical pulp.
Percival Zhang
Percival Zhang, Assistant Professor, Biological Systems Department, Virginia Tech. Zhang has expertise in biomass pretreatment, cellulose hydrolysis modeling, and cellulosome construction. He recognized by Esquire Magazine as one of the “Best and Brightest in 2006”, DuPont Young Professor Award, and Air Force Young Investigator Award (AFOSR).
Scientific Advisory Board
Edward Bayer
Dr. Ed Bayer is a Full professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. During his scientific career, he has pioneered two separate areas of research: the avidin-biotin technology and the field of cellulosomes. He is co-discoverer of the the cellulosome concept in the early 1980s. In 1999, he was organizer and Co-chair of the first Gordon Research Conference on "Cellulases and Cellulosomes", and he served as Chairman of the same conference in 2001. In 1994, he proposed the use of “designer cellulosomes” for biomass degradation, waste management, and as a general tool in the biological sciences. During his career, he has collaborated with groups in the United States, Canada, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Guatemala, China, Japan, Australia, and the Republic of Georgia. He has authored over 280 articles and reviews in both fields.
Sharon Shoemaker
Dr. Shoemaker, Founder and Executive Director of the California Institute of Food and Agricultural Research (CIFAR) is the author of several patents on novel yeast strains to convert biomass-to-ethanol and novel bacterial strains to produce new forms of cellulose. She is currently researching the application of cellulases in biomass conversion (e.g. rice straw, wood, missed waste paper), the integration of various unit operations in biomass conversion processes (membrane filtration, enzymes) and the development of new analytical methods for quantifying specific cellulose activities. Dr. Shoemaker has directed research in new enzyme and strain development, and bioprocessing to chemicals, materials and fuels.
Andrew Staehelin
University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Andrew Staehelin is the first recipient of the Fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists awarded in 2007 for his distinguished contributions to plant biology. Dr. Staehelin was previously awarded the inaugural 2006 Haselkorn Scholar Award from the University of Chicago. Dr. Staehelin is recognized for his research on the functional organization and dynamic properties of the organelles and cytoskeletal arrays that produce new plant cell walls during cytokinesis and allow cell walls to expand during cell growth. He has served on the editorial board of Plant Physiology and on the Barnes Life Award Committee. He is the founder and organizer of the new Keystone and Gordon Conferences for plant cell biology.
Judy Wall
Dr. Wall works on a variety of research areas in the University of Missouri biochemistry department including environmental microbiology, bioremediation of toxic metal, and the genetics and biochemistry of sulfate-reducing bacteria. Dr. Wall is a Member of the Working Group for EU-US, Editor in Chief of Applied and Environmental Microbiology from 1995 to 2001, a member of the Editorial Board for J. Bacteriol., AEM, Environ. Microbiol., Omics, and Faculty of 1000, the Board of Governors, American Academy for Microbiology, 2002-2008 and the Co-editor of Bioenergy, ASM Press in 2008.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a national multi-program research and development facility managed by UT-Battelle, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy.
