Yaoping Zhang Bioenergy Research Award

Established in 2024, the Yaoping Zhang Bioenergy Research Award is given annually to recognize members of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center community who have made important research contributions through high-impact, peer-reviewed publications that advance the center’s scientific mission to develop sustainable lignocellulosic biofuels and products.

Yaoping Zhang was a senior scientist and generous collaborator who led GLBRC’s Experimental Fermentation Facility, made multiple key research contributions, and authored important GLBRC publications from 2011 until his death in April 2024.
Zhang’s contributions included multiomics characterization of Z. mobilis and developing both the center's synthetic hydrolysate and its aqueous ammonia deconstruction pipeline documented in a remarkable set of 28 published papers.
2024 recipients: Steven Karlen and Sang-Jin Kim
The winners of the first Yaoping Zhang award are GLBRC senior scientists Steven Karlen and Sang-Jin Kim.
Kim, a research assistant professor in the Brandizzi lab at Michigan State University, was recognized for his dedication and ingenuity in both basic and applied research on cell wall biology, particularly for his success in raising glucan levels in sorghum biomass.
Karlen, who joined the center in 2012, maintains instrumentation across labs, interprets analytic data for most research groups, and has a hand in identifying the GLBRC’s larger research directions.