Professor Ahner is the Associate Chair of the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering. Her research in environmental biotechnology explores how organisms adapt to trace metal stress in the environment and how they in turn influence the form of metals in the environment - for example how plants solubilize, take up, detoxify and sequester metals. Her laboratory group focuses on research questions involving intracellular detoxification mechanisms and how biological processes affect the biogeochemical cycling of metals in the natural environment and in engineered systems. One application of this research is to phytoremediation, the use of plants to remove metals from contaminated soils.
Lindsay Anderson is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering. Her research interests lie broadly in renewable energy. More specifically, Dr. Anderson is currently working on the integration of renewable energy technologies into existing power systems and energy markets. This is an interdisciplinary research area with aspects of operations, optimization, as well as environmental and systems engineering. Some specific research projects are described below.
Lars Angenent an Associate Professor in Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. He is interested in converting organic materials, such as in wastes, into energy carriers by using bioprocessing with microbes. Interests include thermochemical pretreatment, anaerobic fermentation, anaerobic digestion, and bioelectrochemical systems. For organic waste conversion into bioenergy, Lars Angenent is promoting the carboxylate platform as an important platform in biorefineries because water and nutrients must be recycled while bioenergy yields must be maximized. This platform is based on microbial conversions with undefined mixed cultures that can handle the complexity and variability of organic wastes. Therefore, Lars Angenent is interested in the microbial community dynamics in engineered systems. For this reason, his lab utilizes second-generation sequencing platforms in combination with powerful bioinformatic tools and ecology theory.
Dr. Gary Bergstrom is a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology at Cornell University where he leads research programs on the ecology, epidemiology, and integrated management of diseases of field crops, including perennial grasses for bioenergy production. He also conducts outreach education with extension educators, crop producers, and agribusiness, and serves as the co-chair of Cornell University's Integrated Field Crop, Soil, and Pest Management Program Work Team. Bergstrom is a fellow and former president of the American Phytopathological Society. Members of the Bergstrom laboratory are conducting research in three areas relating to the Biofuels Research Laboratory. These are (A) epidemiology and sustainable management of diseases affecting bioenergy crops, (B) lignocellulose degrading capabilities of plant pathogens, and (C) evaluation and improvement of plant pathogenic filamentous fungi for biotechnological applications.
Dr. Craighead joined the faculty of Cornell University as a Professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics in 1989. From 1989 until 1995 he was Director of the National Nanofabrication Facility at Cornell University. Dr. Craighead was Director of the School of Applied and Engineering Physics from 1998 to 2000 and the founding Director of the Nanobiotechnology Center from 2000 to 2001. He served as Interim Dean of the College of Engineering from 2001 to 2002 after which he returned to the Nanobiotechnology Center as Director. He has been a pioneer in nanofabrication methods and the application of engineered nanosystems for research and device applications.
Dr. Craighead's recent research activity includes the use of nanofabricated devices for biological and biomedical applications. His research continues to involve the study and development of new methods for nanostructure formation, integrated fluidic/optical devices, nanoelectromechanical systems and single molecule analysis.
Dr. Gibson is the Research Leader for the Biological Integrated Pest Management Research Unit, USDA, Agricultural Research Service, at the RW Holley Center for Agriculture and Health. She also is an member of the Graduate Faculty and and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology at Cornell University. Her research interests lie in the area of bioproducts, especially in the identification and characterization of secondary metabolites of plants and fungi, production/use strategies for secondary metabolites in agricultural systems, and identification and improvement of accessory enzymes for lignocellulosic biomass treatment.
Gossett joined the Cornell faculty in 1976. He was a faculty research fellow (1980) and a visiting professor (1984-85) with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, and maintains close ties with that facility, in terms of both research and consulting. He was a NATO fellow (1987-92), participating in a pilot study on remedial-action technologies for contaminated land and groundwater; and a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Affiliate Staff Scientist (1996-1999). Gossett is a member of the Association of Environmental Engineering & Science Professors, and the American Society for Microbiology.
The research in Susan Henry's laboratory focuses on regulation of membrane lipid metabolism in yeast and its coordination with stress response signaling. We have shown that signals arising from lipid metabolism in the endoplasmic reticulum and plasma membrane influence major signaling pathways and transcriptional networks in the cell. In yeast, lipid metabolism influences, and is influenced by, several major stress response pathways that are important for optimal growth under high temperature, high osmolarity and other stress conditions encountered in biofuel production. These stress responses include the unfolded protein response pathway and the protein-kinase C (cell wall integrity) pathway, calcineurin signaling and the glucose response pathway. We are also using genetic engineering approaches to maximize the production of triacyglycerol and determine the potential of yeast for biodiesel production.
The Richardson lab studies the activities of microbial communities through the study of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics. While DNA-based techniques still serve as an anchoring point in bioenvironmental engineering, gene presence and characterization only provide insights into potential activity. Instantaneous activity levels are much more tightly tight to RNA and protein (particularly enzymatic proteins). With the wealth of information obtainable by querying RNA and protein pools, it is not only possible to determine whether a particular gene is being expressed under certain conditions, but it is also possible to use the data to develop molecular bioindicators of specific activities in environmental and reactor systems.
Dr. Jocelyn Rose is an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Biology, Director of the Cornell's Institute of Biotechnology and Life Science Technologies, and Director of the Center for Life Science Enterprise, one of New York State's Centers for Advanced Technology (http://www.biotech.cornell.edu). His research interests are broadly directed at various aspects of plant cell wall biology, including the biochemical and molecular mechanisms that have evolved in plants for cell wall assembly and degradation. Specific topics of relevance include understanding the synthesis and disassembly of cellulose/hemicellulose composites in plant walls and the factors that influence cell wall architectural variation. His group has been involved in both targeted studies of specific genes and proteins that influence cellulose microfibril formation and nanostructure, and screens for cell wall diversity in a range of perennial grasses, including warm season varieties and those that are native to the Northeast.
For the last 25 years, Dr. Tester has been active in examining chemical processes in hydrothermal and supercritical media as they relate to fuel upgrading, renewable energy extraction and conversion and environmental control technologies. Major thrusts include biomass reforming and unconventional fossil fuel upgrading and chemical synthesis in biphasic water-carbon dioxide mixtures. In particular, experimental and theoretical studies currently under investigation include: hydrothermal liquefaction and gasification of a range of biomass feedstocks including lignin cellulosics from forest products, high lipid algal feeds and agriculture wastes and sludges; methods for clean chemical processing; and life cycle analysis of energy and mass flows.
Dr. Tester also continues his interests in technologies associated with advanced drilling, geothermal energy recovery and conversion. Research in this area deals with phase transformations, chemical reaction kinetics and reaction pathway analysis, salt formation dynamics and separation, molecular thermodynamics in mixed water-hydrocarbon-salt systems, equation of state modeling, and process simulation and modeling.
Dr. Donald Viands is a professor in the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University and leads the department's Forage Project. The Forage Project's renewable energy research effort focuses on the production of perennial grasses for use as a bioenergy feedstock. Since 2007, the Forage Project has established warm and cool season perennial grass trials in small and large plot experiments in diverse regions of New York. Through these ongoing trials, the project has collected a variety of grass data, including chemical compositional characteristics related to downstream energy conversion to liquid fuels, gases and combustible products. The Forage Project uses the Biofuels Research Laboratory's FT-NIR system to identify the chemical and physical characteristics of perennial grasses sampled from its field trials. Forage Project BRL users are Research Associate Dr. Hilary Mayton and Technician Ryan Crawford. Other Forage Project personnel are Senior Research Associate Dr. Julie Hansen, Research Support Specialist Jamie Crawford, and Technicians Robert Deubler and Jason Schiller.
Dr. Larry Walker is a Professor in Biological and Environmental Engineering. His interest in biofuels dates back to the early 80's where he co-directed a multidisciplinary team that evaluated the NY ethanol production capacity from crops and cheese whey. He directed the USDOE "Energy Integrated Farm", which was a multi-disciplinary project involving six Cornell departments working to integrate energy conversation technology, anaerobic digestion and co-generation on a private dairy farm. He led a successful "multidisciplinary graduate education and training program (MGET)" funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). He is currently the Director of the Northeast Sun Grant Initiative (NESGI), a 14 state regional research, education and outreach initiative focused on bioenergy and bioproducts funded by USDA, US Department of Transportation and the United State Department of Energy. Dr. Walker is also the Director of Cornell's Biofuels Research Laboratory - an 11,500 sq. ft. state-of-the-art biofuels research and development facility that supports the research of 15 Cornell professors involved in multidisciplinary biofuel research and development activities.
Dr. Walker's research efforts are focused on coupling biological science and engineering paradigms and methods to develop novel bioenergy and bioproducts from agricultural feedstocks. His research activities span from basic research on deploying nano-scale confinement fluid systems and advanced imaging to explore molecular mechanisms of important cell-wall-degrading enzymes, to more applied research such as the development of bi-phasic CO2 and water pretreatment of plant biomass. Systems engineering methods have always been a part of Dr. Walker's research activities whether it is focused on integrated energy processes or modeling metabolic fluxes in important industrial microorganisms. He enjoys extracting insights from processes through the synthesis of experimental results and predictions of mathematical models.
The Wilson laboratory studies the enzymology of plant cell wall degradation with a major focus on cellulases. Enzymes that degrade insoluble substrates have important differences from most enzymes whose substrates are small soluble molecules. In addition, cellulases are important industrial enzymes and have potential in the production of renewable, non-polluting fuels and chemicals. We are using a combination of genomics, protein engineering, and molecular biology in our research.
