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 catalysisclubphilly.org/about/by-laws.
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