Doug Archibald (Crop and Soil Sciences). Dr. Archibald is a Research Associate in the Penn State University Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, and is a member of the Graduate Faculty in the Agronomy program. His tool-based research covers five broad areas within application of analytical chemistry in crop and soil sciences: 1) plant tissue evaluation, 2) fat quality assessment for commodities, 3) mycotoxin analysis, 4) soil organic matter evaluation, and 5) analytical laboratory training and education. His principal areas of analytical expertise are multivariate analysis of instrumental data, and UV-vis, NIR, Raman and infrared spectroscopy. His research goal is to develop analytical methodologies that will catalyze improvement of agricultural and environmental systems through acceleration of research and development.

 

Nicole Brown (School of Forest Resources). Dr. Brown currently conducts research on wood adhesives and the wood adhesive interphase.  Her background in polymer synthesis and characterization techniques is coupled with an understanding of wood as a biomaterial resource.  Areas of interest for Dr. Brown include modifying cellulose fibers to develop value-added materials, identifying applications for bacterial cellulose, employing biomimetics in product design, and developing novel wood and or textile materials, as well as advanced coatings.

 

Jeffrey Catchmark (Engineering Science and Mechanics and Agricultural and Biological Engineering). Dr. Catchmark currently conducts research in the area of cellulose synthesis and organization, nanoscale patterning of biomotor proteins, molecular lithography, and catalytic based motors and microfluidics. An overarching theme of Dr. Catchmark’s research is implementing or developing new nanofabrication processes and devices addressing needs in non traditional biological and chemical disciplines. Dr. Catchmark was also the former head of the Penn State Nanofabrication Facility which is part of the National Science Foundation National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NSF NNIN), which he co-established at Penn State. One mission of the NSF NNIN is to bring nanoscale science and engineering to new disciplines. Dr. Catchmark has been active in identifying and interacting with academic and industrial representatives from traditional disciplines, such as the forest products industry, to explore the application of nanotechnology.

 

Daniel Cosgrove (Biology). Dr. Cosgrove research involves plant cell wall expansion. Cell expansion plays a crucial role in shaping the form and size of plants. His research focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of cell expansion. By use of biophysical, biochemical and molecular techniques, in combination with whole-plant measurements, his group is trying to determine (a) which processes limits growth under normal and stressed conditions and (b) how plants regulate their growth rates. Dr. Cosgrove is currently collaborating with Dr. Catchmark to perform AFM imaging of the real-time expansion of plant cell walls under the influence of expansin proteins.

 

 

Ali Demirci (Agricultural and Biological Engineering). Dr. Demirci’s research involves microbiological engineering and, in particular, the inactivation/control of pathogenic microorganisms in foods by novel technologies. He is also interested in the bioconversion of agricultural raw and waste commodities into value added products, microbial strain development, novel bioreactors and downstream processing. Currently Dr. Demirci is applying new reactor technologies for the efficient production of cellulose.

 

 

James Kubicki (Geosciences). Prof. James Kubicki is an Associate Professor in Geosciences. His research focuses on a number of areas including: 1) Metal /Organic Acid /Natural Organic Matter Interactions in Gas Phase and in Aqueous Solution, 2) Biomolecule /Mineral Surface Interactions including proteins and Polysaccharides, 3) Iron/Siderophore Interactions: Energetics and Isotopic Fractionation and 4) Water Structure and Adsoption of Radionuclides on Rutile (TiO2) Surfaces. Prof. Kubicki’s laboratory facilities include a standard wet chemistry preparation laboratory for the surface modification work and a Perkin-Elmer Lambda 40 UV/visible spectrophotometer in addition to three Silicon Graphics Octane workstations, a 16-processor (300 MHz) Origin 2000 with 4 GB of RAM, a 32-processor SGI Origin 3400 with 32 GB of RAM, a 16-processor Linux cluster, and two IBM RISC/6000 workstations for molecular scale modeling.

 

Daniel Perkins (Agricultural Engineering and Extension Education).  Dr. Perkins interests focus on the characteristics that influence positive youth development (e.g., resiliency, risk factors, and protective processes), healthy family development (e.g., positive parenting, sound familial communication, etc.), and strong communities (e.g., social cohesion, effective collaborations, etc.). Recently Dr. Perkins is working with Profs. Catchmark and Brown on the development of new course modules which teach pre-college students about nanoscale science and engineering principles using natural materials.

 

 

 

Virendra Puri (Agricultural and Biological Engineering). Dr. Puri conducts research in engineering properties of materials; food powders, numerical modeling and food safety. Most recently, Dr. Puri has been engaged in the finite element modeling of cellulosic nanocomposites with the aim of improving the mechanical properties of fiber networks while reducing the fiber content.

 

 

Chuck Ray (School of Forest Resources). Dr. Ray’s research focuses on wood products operations management; operations research; process control, simulation, and optimization; statistical quality control; relationships of wood, moisture, product properties, and environmental emissions; artificial intelligence; non-destructive evaluation of wood products; lean manufacturing and quality management systems. He has interacted with many companies in the area of forest products.

 

 

 

Tom Richard (Agricultural and Biological Engineering). Dr. Richard’s research focuses on innovative microbial and enzymatic systems for conversion of biomass resources to value-added products. Relevant current studies include depolymerization of lignocellulose in solid-state fermentation, fiber recovery from industrial byproducts and residuals, and enhancing performance of biocomposite materials.

 

 

Paul Smith (School of Forest Resources). Dr. Smith’s research program addresses various aspects of business-to-business marketing in the forest products industry.  His current research projects include: product-market development for woodfiber-plastic composites (WPCs); trade show use and effectiveness; Pennsylvania value-added hardwood industries; and oriented-strand board (OSB) value analysis.  Over the past 8 years, Dr. Smith has worked within a project team consisting of 8 – 15 engineers per project to develop WPC technologies, products, and markets for industrial infrastructure and residential building applications (for the Office of Naval Research).  We envision a similar key role within this center—technology product-market development.

 

 

Ming Tien (Biochemistry). Prof. Ming Tien is Professor of Biochemistry and has three interrelated active research areas: 1) Fungal lignin biodegradation. This work focuses on using a proteomics approach toward identifying all of the extracellular proteins produced by P. chrysosporium when grown on wood to determine the role of the wood substrate on enzyme production and the succession of enzymes involved in degradation of wood. 2) Dissimilatory Iron reduction. This work focuses on the bioreduction of Iron. Microbial Fe respiration is important because it dominates reduction of iron in a large number of natural systems today. Accomplishments include the first in vitro (cell-free) model system derived from Shewanella wherein membrane fractions directly reduce solid-phase Fe minerals. 3) Methionine sulfoxide reductase. We are characterizing the role of methionine sulfoxide reductases in protection of plants from oxidative stress. Using transgenic plants that over express and under express particular enzymes, oxidative stresses are being explored, along with the enzymology of these enzymes.

 

 

Tell me more!