David Bransby
Douglas H. Cortez
Enrique Iglesia
Bryan Jenkins
Leo E. Manzer
G. David Tilman
David Bransby is a professor in the College of Agriculture at Auburn University. He has over 30 years of experience in agricultural research, specializing in grassland (rangeland and improved pasture) management, and 20 years of experience in research and development of energy crops and bioenergy. With over $7 million in grant funds, Dr. Bransby’s research program in each of these fields is the largest of its kind in the United States. These projects include a $2.6 million commercial scale test in which switchgrass was co-fired with coal to produce electricity. He is a valued expert in the fields of agriculture and bioenergy, and has served as an advisor to Senator Jeff Sessions and Congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama – as well as the White House. An author of over 300 professional publications, he is also on the editorial board of the international journal, Biomass and Bioenergy. Dr. Bransby earned his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in agriculture from the University of Natal in South Africa. He earned his master’s degree in agronomy from the University of Missouri while on a Rotary International Graduate Fellowship, and his master’s degree in market research and advertising from the University of South Africa.
Douglas H. Cortez has over 35 years of international experience with all phases of energy project development in various industries. Most recently, Dr. Cortez was an executive with the Fluor Corporation, the largest publicly held engineering and construction company in the United States. At Fluor, Dr. Cortez contributed to the development of a wide range of energy projects, including petroleum refining, petrochemical, conventional fossil power generation, clean coal conversion, and alternative energy technology development. His experience also includes carbon capture technologies designed to reduce the production of climate-changing gases. Before Fluor, Dr. Cortez was an executive with the Tosco Corporation, where he was responsible for the development of cogeneration facilities at Tosco refineries, the study of technologies for coal and petroleum coke utilization, and the development and licensing of Tosco's shale oil production technologies. He was also a member of the management team that completed the acquisition of refining and marketing assets, as well as private and public oil and gas properties. Dr. Cortez earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and both his master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a registered Professional Engineer in California.
Enrique Iglesia is Chancellor's Professor of chemical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and a Faculty Scientist at the E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research group combines expertise and facilities for the synthesis of novel catalytic solids, their in situ structural and mechanistic characterization, and the detailed modeling of kinetic and transport processes in catalytic processes relevant to oil refining, petrochemical synthesis, energy conversion, and environmental protection. Professor Iglesia joined the UC Berkeley faculty after 11 years of research and management experience in heterogeneous catalysis and reaction engineering at the Corporate Research Laboratories of Exxon Research and Engineering. The recipient of numerous awards, honors, and distinctions, including his election to the National Academy of Engineering in February 2008, he is also editor in chief of the Journal of Catalysis and the founding and current director of the Berkeley Catalysis Center. Professor Iglesia received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University and his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University.
Bryan Jenkins is a Distinguished Professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of California, Davis. He teaches and conducts research in the areas of energy and power, with an emphasis on biomass and other renewable resources. Dr. Jenkins has more than 30 years of experience working in the area of biomass thermo-chemical conversion, including combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis. His research includes analysis and optimization of bioenergy systems. At UC Davis, he teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses on energy systems, heat and mass transfer, and power and energy conversion, including renewable fuels, economic analysis, environmental impacts, fuel cells, engines, electric machines, fluid power, cogeneration, solar, and other technologies. Dr. Jenkins is a recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the U.S. Department of Energy for exceptional contributions to the development of bioenergy. Currently, he serves as a co-chair of the UC Davis Bioenergy Research Group, and as an executive director of the California Biomass Collaborative, a joint industry, government, environmental, and academic coordinating organization for biomass technology and policy.
Leo E. Manzer is the president of Catalytic Insights LLC, which he founded to provide expertise in problems related to catalytic science and engineering. Before Catalytic Insights, Dr. Manzer had a long and illustrious career at DuPont, where he founded and directed the company’s Corporate Catalysis Center. In this position, he oversaw research programs in homogeneous, heterogeneous, and enzyme catalysis. During his tenure at DuPont, he initiated a program – at the request of Conoco (then owned by DuPont) – to develop technology for the conversion of natural gas to linear alkanes for diesel fuel. This laid the groundwork for Conoco’s world-class position in GTL (gas-to-liquids) technology. For all of his research efforts, he achieved the company’s highest level of professional recognition for scientists and was named a DuPont Fellow. He is the author of over 90 publications and the holder of over 100 U.S. patents. He has also received numerous awards, including the Eugene J. Houdry Award in applied catalysis and three National Awards from the American Chemical Society. Dr. Manzer received his doctoral degree in chemistry from the University of Western Ontario.
G. David Tilman, is Regents’ Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota, and is also Director of the University’s Cedar Creek Natural History Area. His research explores how managed and natural ecosystems can sustainably meet human needs for food, energy, and ecosystem services. A long-term focus of his research is on the causes, consequence, and conservation of biological diversity, including using biodiversity as a tool for biofuel production and climate stabilization through carbon sequestration. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Tilman was the Founding Editor of the journal Ecological Issues and has served on editorial boards of nine scholarly journals, including Science. He serves on the Advisory Board for the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and a Fellow of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. The Institute for Scientific Information designated him as the world’s most cited environmental scientist of the decade for 1990–2000, for 1996–2006, and for intervening decades.
