Professor Arthur Ragauskas FRSC

Winner: 2022 Environment, Sustainability and Energy Division open award: Environment Prize

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and University of Tennessee, Knoxville

For pioneering several widely used tools and approaches in biorefining, including the mechanistic understanding of lignin conversion chemistry.

Celebrate Professor Arthur Ragauskas

#RSCPrizes

Download celebratory graphic →

There can be no higher honour than the acknowledgement that your work is contributing to a better environment!

Professor Ragauskas’s research focuses on developing new and improved applications for naturally-derived renewable biopolymers for biofuels, biopower, and bio-based materials and chemicals. By understanding the structure of biomass from wood and agricultural products. Professor Ragauskas hopes to develop sustainable chemical solutions to replace petroleum derived resources.

Read winner biography

Arthur Ragauskas held the first Fulbright Chair in Alternative Energy and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Academy of Wood Science and the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI). In 2014, he assumed the governor’s chair for biorefining based at the University of Tennessee’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, with a complementary appointment at the university’s Institute of Agriculture’s Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries. He also serves in the Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate, Biosciences Division, at ORNL.

Professor Ragauskas’s research focuses on understanding and exploiting innovative sustainable bioresources for the circular economy. This multifaceted research seeks to develop new and improved applications for nature’s renewable biopolymers for biofuels, biopower, and bio-based materials and chemicals. His Fulbright-sponsored activities at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, focused on the forest biorefinery and new biofuel conversion technologies for lignocellulosics.

Currently, Professor Ragauskas manages a research group of graduate students, postdoctoral research fellows, a research scientist, and visiting scientists. He is the recipient of the 2014 TAPPI Gunnar Nicholson Gold Medal Award, the 2014 ACS Affordable Green Chemistry Award, 2017 AIChE Green Processing Award, 2017 Academia Distinguished Service Award, 2019 AIChE Chase Award, and his students and postdocs have won several awards, including the ACS graduate research award, ORNL UT-Battelle Award, and the ORNL Supplementary Performance Award. His research has been summarised in 828 peer-reviewed publications.

Q+A

Who or what has inspired you?

My former supervisor, Professor J Stothers, who always had a passion for science, and my family that always appreciates nature.

What motivates you?

Blending science and passion to address the environmental needs and challenges of the future.

What advice would you give to a young person considering a career in chemistry?

Stay true to your scientific passions, network and find colleagues that share your vision, and remember chemistry is not just a career, but a way to make the world a better place.

Can you tell us about a scientific development on the horizon that you are excited about?

The blending of computational science, genetics, and chemistry, leading to a new frontier.

What does good research culture look like/mean to you?

Freedom, sharing of ideas, partnership, multidisciplinary, discovering the unknown, fundamental science.

How are the chemical sciences making the world a better place?

The growth and development of green chemistry and the acknowledgement that we live in a resource-limited environment challenges all of us to find new sustainable technologies to answer the needs of humankind for the next century.

Why do you think teamwork is important in science?

Some of the most pressing problems and rewarding research frontiers are multidisciplinary in nature and team work provides one of the few pathways forward to address these issues.