Awards

Best Student Presentation Awards

Best Student Presentation Awards will be judged onsite. The two awards—one in the "Applied" and one in the "Fundamental" category—will be presented at the Thursday evening banquet.

2010 Charles D. Scott Awardee
Mike Himmel, NREL, Golden, CO

Dr. Himmel has 30 years of progressive experience in conducting, supervising, and planning research in protein biochemistry, recombinant technology, enzyme engineering, new microorganism discovery, and the physicochemistry of macromolecules. He has also supervised research that targets the application of site-directed-mutagenesis and rational protein design to the stabilization and improvement of important industrial enzymes, especially glycosyl hydrolases. Dr. Himmel has functioned as PI for the DOE EERE Office of the Biomass Program (OBP) since 1992, wherein his responsibilities have included managing research designed to improve cellulase performance, reduce biomass pretreatment costs, and improve yields of fermentable sugars. He has also developed new facilities at NREL for biomass conversion research, including a Cellulase Biochemistry Laboratory, a Biomass Surface Characterization Laboratory, a Protein Crystallography Laboratory, and a new Computational Science Team. Dr. Himmel also serves as the Principal Group Manger of the Biomolecular Sciences Group, where he has supervisory responsibly for 50 staff scientists. During the past three decades, Dr. Himmel has contributed over 450 journal papers, meeting abstracts, (6) books, patents, and copyrights to the literature. He has organized or co-organized 14 international conferences on aspects of biotechnology and biomass conversion. In 2008, Dr. Himmel edited a new book for Blackwell Publishers entitled "Biomass Recalcitrance" which is listed as a top selling book in science and has now been translated into Chinese. Dr. Himmel Chaired the new Gordon Research Conference on "Cellulases and Cellulosomes" in 2003 and continues to support this conference. Dr. Himmel also works closely with the biomass conversion industry today; as demonstrated by the numerous CRADAs currently underway in his laboratory at NREL.

The Charles D. Scott Award

Initiated in 1995, the Charles D. Scott Award recognizes individuals who have made distinguished contributions to enable and further the use of biotechnology to produce fuels and chemicals. The award is named in honor of Dr. Charles D. Scott, who founded the Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals and chaired the conference for its first ten years. A member of the National Academy of Engineering and a past director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Chuck performed research and development on many novel bioprocessing systems while at ORNL including high productivity bioreactors, immoblized microbes, enzymes in organic media, and coal bioprocessing.

Past Awardees of the Charles D. Scott Award
1995 – 17th Symposium – Donald J. Johnson
1996 – 18th Symposium – Bruce Dale
1997 – 19th Symposium – Raphael Katzen
1998 – 20th Symposium – Jack Saddler
1999 – 21st Symposium – Charles E. Wyman
2000 – 22nd Symposium – Karel Grohman
2001 – 23rd Symposium – Patrick Foody
1001 – 24th Symposium – Sharon Shoemaker
2003 – 25th Symposium – Thomas W. Jeffries
2004 – 26th Symposium – Guido Zacchi
2005 - 27th Symposium – Lee Lynd
2006 – 28th Symposium – Brian Davison
2006 – 28th Symposium – Mark Finkelstein
2007 -  29th Symposium – Lonnie O. Ingram
2008 – 30th Symposium –Barbel Hahn-Hagerdal
2009 -  31st Symposium – Michael R. Ladisch

The Raphael Katzen Award

Initiated in 2008, the Raphael Katzen Award recognizes individuals who have made distinguished contributions to enable and further the deployment and commercialization of biotechnology to produce fuels and chemicals from renewable resources. This award is named in honor of Dr. Raphael Katzen, who was a pioneer in scaling up and commercializing technologies for converting renewable feedstocks into fuels and chemicals. Dr. Katzen was involved in this topic since the 1940s when he first began working on converting wood waste to ethanol and played a major role in development and improving corn dry milling technologies and in continuing to advance commercialization of lignocellulose conversion technologies.

Past Awardees of the Raphael Katzen Award
2008  - 30th Symposium – Raphael Katzen
2009 – 31st Symposium – Douglas Cameron