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Sustainable Biomass Conversion

Graduate Student Spotlight: Samantha Kelly

Samatha Kelly is a first year PhD student in the Donohue and Noguera labs. She works in late-stage bioprocessing, engineering microbes to break down complex plant structures like lignin and to separate the most useful products. 

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Where an item is manufactured tells you a lot about it. Is it made by an assembly line or handcrafted one at a time? To learn more about glucose, the sugary feedstock of biofuel refineries, scientists want to know where a polymer of glucose, mixed-linkage glucan (MLG), resides in grasses as grass species are a major potential renewable biomass feedstock.

| Chris Barncard
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and several Department of Energy laboratories have identified two changes to a single gene that can make the yeast tolerate the pretreatment chemicals. They published their findings recently in the journal Genetics.
| Max Witynski

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center hosted 10 REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) students in summer 2018. Seven students participated in bioenergy-related research at Michigan State, and three at UW–Madison. We asked them to tell us a little about their interests, motivations, and/or goals related to bioenergy research at GLBRC.

Studies of plants in the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Biochemistry span everything from how they can be grown or consumed for agricultural or bioenergy purposes to a basic understanding of cell biology in plants and animals.

| Krista Eastman

Imagine a new and improved biorefinery, one that produces advanced biofuels as environmentally sustainable as they are economically viable. In the biorefinery of the future, every step of the pipeline is optimized, almost every part of the energy crop is used, and the entire system, from field to fuel, serves to drive down carbon emissions.

| Natasha Kassulke

University of Wisconsin–Madison Professor of Chemistry Shannon Stahl has received the Steenbock Professorship in Chemical Sciences, one of the most prestigious and important professorships at UW–Madison. Stahl is also an affiliate of the Wisconsin Energy Institute.

| Matt Wisniewski

A prestigious early-career award from the U.S. Department of Energy will help a University of Wisconsin–Madison researcher and his team create new modeling tools that will help optimize the microbial production of biofuels and bioproducts.

| Kaine Korzekwa and Natasha Kassulke

University of Wisconsin–Madison biochemistry assistant professor Philip Romero is a recipient of a 2018 Shaw Scientist Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. The awards come with $200,000 in seed funding to support innovative research approaches and the career development of young investigators.

| Eric Hamilton

Your next bite of local bread or gulp of Madison beer might just have a little piece of Sheboygan in it. Sheboygan yeast, anyway.

| Krista Eastman
Growing up, Rebecca Ong was one of the youngest garden club enthusiasts in northern Michigan, a science-loving kid who accompanied her grandparents to club events like “growing great gardens” or “tulip time.”

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