Feedstock Development

• Dr. Ramamurthy Mahalingam 
  
  
  
  Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, will lead the project “Identifying functional biomarkers associated with the tillering trait in switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.)”

• Dr. Ramanjulu Sunkar
  
  
  
  Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, will lead the project “Identifying and characterizing stress regulated microRNAs and their targets in switchgrass”. 

• Dr. Yanqi Wu
  
  
  
  Associate Professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, will lead the project “Use of DNA molecular markers in assisting the development of bioenergy switchgrass varieties”. 

• Dr. Gopal Kakani
  
  
  
  Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, will lead the project “Genotype by environment interactions of energy crops in Oklahoma”. 
  

Conversion Technologies

• Dr. Babu Fathepure
  
  
  
  Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, will lead the project “Molecular and physiological insights into bacterial lignin degradation for biomass pretreatment”. 
  

• Dr. Hasan Atiyeh
  
  
  
  Assistant Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, will lead the project “Production of butanol from switchgrass”.   
  

• Dr. Danielle Bellmer
  
  
  
  Associate Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, will lead the project “Optimizing sugar extraction for biofuel production”. 
  

• Dr. Nurhan Dunford
  
  
  
  Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, will lead the project “Conversion of wet algal biomass into liquid fuels”.  

• Dr. Ajay Kumar
  
  
  
  Assistant Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, will lead the project “Characterizing Oklahoma biomass for thermochemical conversion into biofuels”.
  

Modeling  

• Dr. Carol Jones
  
  
  
  Associate Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, will lead the project “Modeling bioproduct production from field to factory”.
  

• Dr. Scott Frazier
  
  
  
  Assistant Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, will lead the project “Constructing a biofuel processes life cycle inventory database”.