Elections for the 2013–2014 CCP Season

Table of Con­tents

Elections of officers and amendment to the by-laws

Candidates for the CCP Executive Committee

  • Chair-Elect: Vladimiros Niko­lakis and Haim­ing Liu
  • Trea­sur­er: Steve Har­ris and Hai-Ying Chen
  • NACS Rep­re­sen­ta­tive: Anne Gaffney and Mike Smith
  • Direc­tors: Yaritza Lopez, Joe Li, Ale­jan­dra Rivas-Car­dona, Parag Shah, and Eric Zhang

Biographical sketches of the candidates

Chair-Elect

  • Dr. Vladimiros Niko­lakis (Ph.D., Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Amherst, 2001) is a Research Asso­ciate Direc­tor at the Catal­y­sis Cen­ter for Ener­gy Inno­va­tion (CCEI), Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware. Before join­ing CCEI he was a Prin­ci­pal Researcher at the Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing & High Tem­per­a­ture Chem­i­cal Process­es (FORTH/ICE-HT), Greece. His cur­rent stud­ies are focused in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis for the con­ver­sion of bio­mass feed­stocks to plat­form chem­i­cals or fuels. His research inter­ests also include the fields of zeo­lite crys­tal­liza­tion; zeo­lite mem­brane syn­the­sis and per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion. He has pub­lished more than 40 arti­cles in peer reviewed sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals and he has more than 50 pre­sen­ta­tions in sci­en­tif­ic con­fer­ences. He has served the pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ty as a mem­ber of the orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee of sev­er­al sci­en­tif­ic con­fer­ences (once as a con­fer­ence chair), and as review­er of research arti­cles or pro­pos­als. He served the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia as the Direc­tor of the Poster Ses­sion in 2012–2013.
  • Haim­ing Liu is cur­rent­ly a Senior Research Sci­en­tist at Arke­ma Inc at North Amer­i­ca R&D Cen­ter in King of Prus­sia, PA. For the past ten years he works on char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of organ­ic and inor­gan­ic mate­ri­als includ­ing poly­mers, small mol­e­cules, and cat­a­lysts, using pri­mar­i­ly Nuclear Mag­net­ic Res­o­nance Spec­troscopy and expand­ing new instru­men­ta­tion capa­bil­i­ty. He received his Ph. D. in chem­istry from State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York at Stony Brook, and worked as a post-doc at Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia on syn­the­sis, catal­y­sis, and gas sorption/separation appli­ca­tions of mol­e­c­u­lar sieves includ­ing zeo­lites and porous met­al-organ­ic frame­works. He has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia for twelve years, and has served as Arrange­ments Chair, Mem­ber­ship Direc­tor, and Spon­sor­ship Direc­tor in the past. He is also a mem­ber of Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety and North East Cor­ri­dor Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion. ToC

Treasurer

  • Stephen Har­ris received his PhD in Organometal­lic Chemistry/Physical Organ­ic Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester. He worked 32 years for ARCO Chem­i­cal and its suc­ces­sors on organometal­lic olefin catal­y­sis and plant imple­men­ta­tion, prod­uct purifi­ca­tion improve­ments, prod­uct tech­ni­cal ser­vice and new prod­uct devel­op­ment, and gen­er­al organ­ic process devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion. After a brief stint in the excel­lent city of Boston work­ing on bio­mass trans­for­ma­tions to com­mod­i­ty chem­i­cals, he is work­ing now at Ren­matix on con­ver­sion of wood and oth­er bio­mass sub­strates into fer­mentable sug­ars.
  • Dr. Hai-Ying Chen is a Prod­uct Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er at John­son Matthey Inc., Emis­sion Con­trol Tech­nolo­gies, in Wayne, Penn­syl­va­nia. He is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing advanced cat­a­lysts for exhaust emis­sion con­trol. Hai-Ying Chen received his Ph. D. degree in Chem­istry from Fudan Uni­ver­si­ty, Shang­hai, Chi­na. He has been a mem­ber of the Philadel­phia Catal­y­sis Club since 2000, and served the club as Sec­re­tary, Pro­gram Chair, Direc­tor, Chair, and Trea­sur­er. ToC

NACS Representative

  • Anne Gaffney is cur­rent­ly an INVISTA™ R&D Leader work­ing on Spe­cial­ty Mate­ri­als in Newark, DE. She has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia since 1982 and has held the fol­low­ing club posi­tions: Chair (1986–87); Direc­tor (1989–1995); and NACS Rep­re­sen­ta­tive (1996–2013). Anne received her BA in chem­istry and math­e­mat­ics from Mount Holyoke Col­lege and her Ph.D. in chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware. She has been work­ing in indus­tri­al catal­y­sis since 1981 at the fol­low­ing addi­tion­al com­pa­nies, ARCO Chem­i­cal, DuPont, Rohm and Haas, and Lum­mus Tech­nol­o­gy.
  • Dr. Michael A. Smith is cur­rent­ly an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty. He received his BS in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from Lafayette Col­lege in 1980, then worked in a vari­ety of assign­ments with the DuPont Com­pa­ny for 17 years. Dr. Smith returned to school to obtain a Mas­ters at Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty, and obtained his PhD in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware in 2004 work­ing with Prof Raul Lobo. Since he has work as a research sci­en­tist for an SBIR start­up, and has been at Vil­lano­va since 2006, first as a Vis­it­ing Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, then in a tenure track posi­tion since 2008. Dr. Smith’s research inter­ests include the syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of nanos­truc­tured mate­ri­als made using col­loidal self-assem­bly and sol-gel tech­niques, and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis with an empha­sis on catal­y­sis by met­al oxides. ToC

Directors

  • Dr. Yaritza M. López is cur­rent­ly Tech­ni­cal Pro­gram Man­ag­er at John­son Matthey Inc., Emis­sion Con­trol Tech­nolo­gies, in the Heavy Duty Diesel depart­ment in Audubon, PA. She is lead­ing tech­ni­cal pro­grams for direct appli­ca­tion of advanced cat­a­lyst tech­nol­o­gy onto future engines/vehicles and devel­op­ment of new emis­sions con­trol tech­nol­o­gy. She joined JM in Sep­tem­ber 2010, after fin­ish­ing her Post-Doc at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na (USC), where she focused her research of NOx reduc­tion cat­a­lysts for gaso­line emis­sions. She obtained her PhD degree from USC in 2009, her dis­ser­ta­tion was focused on the syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and kinet­ic eval­u­a­tion of den­drimer-derived monometal­lic and bimetal­lic cat­a­lysts for hydro­gena­tion and NOx reduc­tion reac­tions. Yaritza was mem­ber of the South­east Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and she is an active mem­ber of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (2007 – present). She has been part of sev­er­al pro­fes­sion­al and grad­u­ate stu­dent com­mit­tees. She was co-chair on fun­da­men­tals of catal­y­sis ses­sion in AIChE and she par­tic­i­pat­ed as judge of AIChE under­grad­u­ate stu­dent poster (2010). She was also vice-pres­i­dent of the chem­i­cal engi­neer grad­u­ate orga­ni­za­tion at USC (2008–2009) and part of the grad­u­ate stu­dent recruit­ing com­mit­tee at USC from 2005 to 2009.
  • Yejia (Joe) Li is a sci­en­tist in Arke­ma Inc. work­ing in analy­sis of poly­mers using Gel Per­me­ation Chro­matog­ra­phy (GPC)/Size Exclu­sion Chro­matog­ra­phy (SEC). He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Sci­ence from Peking Uni­ver­si­ty Health Sci­ence Cen­ter, Bei­jing, Chi­na. After a short peri­od of indus­try expe­ri­ence, he stud­ied in Tulane Uni­ver­si­ty for his PhD degree in syn­the­sis, purifi­ca­tion and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of poly­mers with var­i­ous archi­tec­tures, prop­er­ties and appli­ca­tions. His cur­rent work involves method devel­op­ment of GPC, analy­sis of mol­e­c­u­lar weight and dis­tri­b­u­tion of poly­mers.
  • Ale­jan­dra Rivas-Car­dona is a Staff Sci­en­tist at John­son Matthey Emis­sion Con­trol Tech­nolo­gies in the Prod­uct Devel­op­ment depart­ment. She is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing new cat­a­lysts for emis­sion con­trol appli­ca­tions and man­ag­ing the Prod­uct Devel­op­ment research lab­o­ra­to­ry. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Celaya Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, one of the top five Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing pro­grams in Mex­i­co. Ale­jan­dra received her Ph.D. degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty, where she worked in zeo­lite syn­the­sis under the guid­ance of Pro­fes­sor Daniel Shantz. She was a mem­ber of the South­west Catal­y­sis Soci­ety where she par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al Annu­al Spring Sym­po­siums and has been a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety since 2010. She became a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia in Novem­ber 2011 and has been attend­ing its meet­ings and sym­po­siums since then.
  • Parag Shah is a Senior Research Engi­neer at PQ Cor­po­ra­tion and is involved in devel­op­ing improved sil­i­ca-based sup­ports and process/product devel­op­ment for emerg­ing cat­a­lyst tech­nolo­gies. In 2008 he received his PhD in Chem­i­cal and Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing from Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia under the guid­ance of Prof. Ray­mond J. Gorte. His the­sis work focused on inves­ti­gat­ing the ther­mo­dy­nam­ic prop­er­ties of met­al-oxide cat­a­lysts. Parag earned his Bachelor’s degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Tech­nol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Bom­bay (India), and sub­se­quent­ly did a Mas­ters in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Twente (The Nether­lands), with empha­sis on Process Devel­op­ment and Design. He has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia since 2004, and has served as Sec­re­tary (2010–2012), and Direc­tor (2012–2013).
  • Dr. Xiawei (Eric) Zhang received his B.S. in chem­istry from Lanzhou Uni­ver­si­ty, Chi­na in 1995, and a M.S. in organometal­lic chem­istry from the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Sin­ga­pore in 2000, where he worked in the lab­o­ra­to­ry of Pro­fes­sor Pak-Hing Leung. He obtained his Ph.D. also in organometal­lic chem­istry from Rut­gers, the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New Jer­sey at New Brunswick in 2005 work­ing with Pro­fes­sor Alan Gold­man. He then did post­doc­tor­al research in Pro­fes­sor Geoff Coates’ lab­o­ra­to­ry at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. Dr. Zhang start­ed his career in indus­try in 2008. After about 5 years work­ing in Arke­ma Inc., he joined the Philadel­phia site of Hon­ey­well as senior sci­en­tist in 2013. ToC

Proposed amendment to the CCP by-laws

 
We pro­posed to amend sec­tion 5 of BY–LAW IV — Offi­cers, to include the posi­tion of Web­mas­ter among the appoint­ed posi­tions. Addi­tions are high­light­ed with an ital­ic blue font on yel­low back­ground and a dele­tions are strike-through. The com­plete CCP by-laws are avail­able at catal​y​sis​clubphilly​.org/​a​b​o​u​t​/​b​y​-​l​aws.

Proposed text for section 5 of BY–LAW IV — Officers

 
The Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee shall con­sist of the offi­cers of the Club, the imme­di­ate Past–Chairman, three elect­ed Direc­tors, a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, and three four offi­cers appoint­ed by the Chair­man: Arrange­ments Chair, Sec­re­tary (as amend­ed – Octo­ber 2000), and Pro­gram Chair, and Web­mas­ter. Sec­re­tary (as amend­ed – Octo­ber 2000) shall include send­ing to mem­bers such notices as the busi­ness of the Club may require, noti­fy­ing mem­bers of the time and place of meet­ings, keep­ing min­utes of the busi­ness meet­ings, and tak­ing care of such cor­re­spon­dence as the busi­ness of the Club requires (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994). They shall adopt and rec­om­mend to the Chair­man for exe­cu­tion those poli­cies and plan which will best fur­ther the achieve­ment of the objec­tives of the Club. The Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety shall serve on the Board of Direc­tors of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and shall be respon­si­ble to the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Club (as amend­ed – Octo­ber, 1984). The Web­mas­ter shall main­tain the inter­net pres­ence of the Club. ToC