Breakout Session II
Thermochemical Processing
Lisa Myers
Lisa Myers is the Director of Biofuels Research & Development for ConocoPhillips. Ms. Myers began her career with Phillips Petroleum Company in 1998 as an Analytical Chemist in Research & Development. After the merger of ConocoPhillips, she transferred to downstream operations as the Special Projects Chemist for the Sweeny Refinery. In 2005, she returned to Research & Development as the director of new catalyst development. In 2006, she was named director of Biofuels Research & Development.
Ms. Myers received a doctorate in Chemistry from Oklahoma State University in 1998. She is a member of the American Chemical Society.
Akwasi Boateng
Akwasi Boateng is a research scientist with the Agricultural
Research Service (ARS), the intramural research arm of the USDA. He started the ARS
thermochemical program in 2003 and is a lead chemical engineer on their efforts to develop
on-farm biorefinery systems for agricultural residues, including energy crops. His prior
experiences include academic positions at the University of Guyana in South America and at
Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. In 1988 he was faculty Fulbright Fellow from the Caribbean
region at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Kansas State University, where he continued
his research on the combustion and gasification of rice hulls, including the use of rice hull
ash as a pozzolan for cement extension. His industrial experiences include process design and
operation of high-temperature industrial furnaces used for minerals and materials processing.
He spent 10 years in that industry optimizing confined turbulent diffusion flames and the
modeling of particulate flows in such operations. He is the author of the book Rotary Kilns –
Transport Phenomena and Transport Processes by Butterworth-Heinemann publishers. He holds a
PhD from the University of British Columbia.
Robert Brown
Robert Brown is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering and Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University. He is also the Iowa Farm Bureau Director of the University’s Office of Biorenewables Programs, and the director of the Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies.
Dr. Brown is an expert in biorenewable resources especially related to the thermochemical processing of biomass into energy, fuels, and chemicals. His areas of research interests include conversion of biorenewable resources into bioenergy and biobased products, combustion, gasification, fast pyrolysis, hydrogen energy, and hydrodynamics and heat transfer in fluidized beds.
Brown has testified before Congress and become a national leader in efforts to explore alternative fuels, including creative alternatives such as switchgrass. He received the Distinguished Iowa Scientist Award in 2006 and is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 1997, Brown received a R&D 100 Award for his work with the off-line carbon-in-ash monitor. He is credited with eight patents.
Roger Ruan
Roger Ruan is the Director of Center for Biorefining, Co-Leader and Coordinator of IREE Bioenergy and Bioproducts Cluster, and Professor of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering at University of Minnesota. Professor Ruan’s research focuses on various aspects of value-added process engineering and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and NMR imaging development and applications. His current interests are in conversion of renewable biomass into fuels, chemicals, and materials, biopolymer process improvement, quality enhancement and safety assurance, and nonthermal plasma development and application in food and bioprocessing. Professor Ruan has published over 160 papers in refereed journals, book, and book chapters, and over 300 meeting papers and other reports, and holds 10 US patents.
He has supervised more than 40 graduate students, 60 post-doctors, research fellows, and other engineers and scientists, and 7 of his students hold university faculty positions. He has received over 100 projects totaling over $15 millions in various funding for research. He is an editorial board member of Journal of Food Process Engineering, and Associate Editor of Transactions of ASABE, Engineering Applications in Agriculture, and Transactions of CSAE. Professor Ruan has given over 100 invited symposium presentations, company seminars, and short courses, and has been a consultant for many local, national, and international companies and agencies in renewable energy and products as well as food and value-added processing areas.