Javier Pérez-Ramírez, Chair
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
ORCiD 0000-0002-5805-7355
Javier Pérez-Ramírez, FRSC, is a Full Professor of Catalysis Engineering at ETH Zurich. He studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Alicante and received his PhD degree at the Delft University of Technology. His research pursues the discovery and understanding of catalytic materials and process concepts enabling the transition towards sustainable chemical and energy production.
He is a Highly Cited Researcher in the field of chemistry and his work has been recognized by several awards, most recently the Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis for the North American Catalysis Society in 2019, the EFCATS Robert K. Grasselli Award for Catalysis in 2021, and the Horizon Prize John Jeyes Award, Royal Society of Chemistry in 2022. He founded and currently directs NCCR Catalysis (www.nccr-catalysis.ch), a Swiss Centre of Competence in Research devoted to the development of carbon-neutral chemicals across the whole value chain through catalytic processes.
Aiwen Lei, Associate Editor
College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, The Institute for Advanced Studies, Wuhan University, P. R. China
ORCiD 0000-0001-8417-3061
Aiwen Lei received his PhD degree in chemistry from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry in 2000 in the group of Prof. Xiyan Lu. In 2000 he moved as a postdoc to Pennsylvania State University and the group of Prof. Xumu Zhang, where he worked on asymmetric catalysis. This was followed by a second postdoctoral position in 2003 at Stanford University under the guidance of Prof. James P. Collman, where he worked on porphyrin-catalysed asymmetric epoxidation.
In 2005 he became a Professor of Organic Chemistry at the College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University. In 2015 he was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
He is currently serving as an Associate Dean of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at Wuhan University. He features on the Clarivate 2022 Highly Cited List. His main research interests concern the development of oxidative coupling reactions, especially involving oxygen as the terminal oxidant and mechanistic studies for an in-depth understanding of chemical reactions.
Keiichi Tomishige, Associate Editor
Tohoku University, Japan
ORCiD 0000-0003-1264-8560
Keiichi Tomishige received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from Graduate School of Science, Department of Chemistry, The University of Tokyo. During his Ph.D. course in 1994, he moved to Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo as a research associate. In 1998, he became a lecturer, and then he moved to Institute of Materials Science, University of Tsukuba as a lecturer in 2001. Since 2004 he has been an associate professor, Graduate School of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Tsukuba. Since 2010, he is a professor, School of Engineering, Tohoku University. His research interests are the development of heterogeneous catalysts for 1) production of biomass-derived chemicals, 2) direct synthesis of organic carbonates from CO2 and alcohols, and 3) steam reforming of biomass tar.
Luigi Vaccaro, Associate Editor
University of Perugia, Italy
Luigi Vaccaro is a Full Professor at the University of Perugia, where he leads the Green S.O.C. group. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and before joining Green Chemistry, he was an Associate Editor for RSC Advances (2015-2024). His recognitions include the Europa Medal from the Society of Chemical Industry – London (2001), the ADP Award from Merck's Chemistry Council for "Creative work in organic chemistry" (2006 and 2007), the G. Ciamician Medal of the Società Chimica Italiana (2007), the Lady Davis (2018) Visiting Professorship, the Pino Medal from the Organic and Industrial Divisions of the Italian Chemical Society (2023). His research is aimed at developing different aspects of chemistry to define sustainable and optimized chemical processes, combining the use of safer organic solvents, heterogeneous catalysis, and continuous-flow technology.
André Bardow
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
André Bardow, FRSC, is a Full Professor of Energy & Process Systems Engineering at ETH Zurich. Previously, he was a professor and head of the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at RWTH Aachen University (2010-2020) and founding director (part-time) of the Institute for Energy and Climate Research (IEK-10) at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany (2018-2023). He holds a Ph.D. degree from RWTH Aachen University. André chairs the Technical Committee for Thermodynamics of VDI – The Association of German Engineers. Among the recognitions he has received are the Recent Innovative Contribution Award of the CAPE-Working Party of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE), the PSE Model-Based Innovation (MBI) Prize by Process Systems Enterprise, the Covestro Science Award and the Arnold-Eucken-Award of VDI. His research takes sustainable energy and chemicals development from the molecular level to process design and life-cycle assessment for the whole industry.
Jean-Paul Lange
University of Twente and Shell Projects & Technology, The Netherlands
Jean-Paul Lange is the senior Principal Science Expert at Shell Projects & Technology in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he has been exploring novel catalytic processes for producing fuels and chemicals from natural gas and oil and, for more than twenty years also from biomass and plastic wastes.
His research embraces heterogeneous catalysis, chemical engineering, conceptual process design, manufacturing economics and technology strategy.
Jean-Paul Lange is also a Professor in Chemical Biorefining at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, where he is investigating thermo-chemical and -catalytic routes to convert biomass to fuels and chemicals and to recycle plastic wastes.
Before joining Shell, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Lehigh University in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, USA), got his PhD at the Fritz-Haber Institute (Max Planck Society) in Berlin (Germany) and graduated from the University of Namur (Belgium).
Jean-Paul Lange has co-authored>120 patent series >80 scientific publications, and 10 book chapters and is co-editor of one scientific book.
He also contributes to public science through various advisory boards in the Netherlands, Europe for the CEFIC and the European Commission.
Serenella Sala
European Commission - Joint Research Centre, Italy
Serenella has been the Head of Unit of the Land Resources and Supply Chain Assessments Unit within the Sustainable Resource Directorate at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) since 2010.
Between 2001 and 2010, Serenella was the coordinator of the Research Unit on Sustainable Development (GRISS) at the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Milano Bicocca, where she worked as a scientific project leader for several environmental projects supporting sustainability assessment in both the private and public sector. She actively promoted public and private partnerships on eco-innovation and resource efficiency and contributed to the harmonisation of methods and models for life cycle impact assessment at the international level.
An environmental scientist by background, with a PhD in applied ecology, her research activities support European policies and focus on assessing sustainability by applying methodologies and models for sustainable development, integrated environmental assessment, life cycle assessment, and risk assessment. The focus is on the eco-innovation of processes and products as well as resource efficiency.
Laurel L. Schafer
The University of British Columbia, Canada
Dr. Laurel L. Schafer has received her BSc from the University of Guelph and her PhD from the University of Victoria. She then went on to the University of California-Berkley to complete an NSERC post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. T. D. Tilley. In 2001, she joined the University of British Columbia in Vancouver where she is now a professor and a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Catalyst Development. The Schafer group has developed a family of N,O-chelated early transition metal complexes for atom-economic catalysis to prepare amines, heterocycles, and amine-containing polymers. For this work Laurel has received numerous awards including a Schlenk Lecture Award from the University of Tübingen (2021), a CSC Award, a Humboldt Award, a Killam Research Fellowship and a Killam Award for Graduate Student Mentorship.
Charlotte Williams
University of Oxford, UK
Charlotte K. Williams OBE FRS is a professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Associate Head of Department (Research) in Oxford Chemistry. She is also an EPSRC Established Career Research Fellow.
She heads up a research group investigating polymerization catalysis and polymer chemistry, focusing on improving polymer sustainability. Her work involves close collaboration with scientists and engineers in academic and industrial laboratories.
Earlier in her career, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge University (2002-2003), working with Andrew Holmes and Richard Friend (Organometallic polymers for electronics), and at the University of Minnesota (2001-2002) working with Bill Tolman and Marc Hillmyer (zinc catalysts for lactide polymerization). She obtained her BSc and PhD from Imperial College London, the latter supervised by Vernon Gibson and Nick Long on ethene polymerization catalysis.
In 2011, Charlotte founded econic technologies which sells catalysts and processes facilitating carbon dioxide utilization. From 2003-2016, she was an academic in the Chemistry Department at Imperial College London, serving as Head of Inorganic Chemistry teaching and Head of Materials Chemistry.
Her work has been recognised by prizes and awards including the Royal Society Leverhulme Medal (2022), the RSC Tilden Medal (2021) an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Chemistry (2020), Macro Group UK Medal (2019), The Dechema Otto Roelen Medal (2018), The UK Catalysis Hub Sir John Meurig Thomas Medal (2017), the Royal Society of Chemistry Corday Morgan Medal (2016) and the Women in Science and Engineering Tech-Start Up Award (2015).