PodCAT

Prof. Lars Grabow

Prof. Lars Grabow is the Dan Luss Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 2008, followed by postdoctoral appointments at the Technical University of Denmark and Stanford University. His expertise is the application of electronic structure calculations, kinetic modeling, data science and transient kinetic characterization to problems in heterogeneous and electro-catalysis, surface science, and energy transition. Prof. Grabow received the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Award (2014), and the NSF CAREER Award (2015), among others. At the University of Houston, he was recognized with the Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award and was selected as "Pathway Professor" teaching courses with high DWIF rates. Notable prior service roles include Chair of the Southwest Catalysis Society (SWCS) and the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division of AIChE. Currently, he serves as NACS representative for SWCS and Alternate Councilor for the ACS CATL Division. He is also Editor-in-Chief of ChemistryEurope, after previously serving as Editor of Surface Science. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Grabow to PodCAT!

Prof. Brandon Bukowski

Prof. Brandon Bukowski is an Assistant Professor in the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He holds BS and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Purdue University, respectively. At Purdue he was advised by Jeffrey Greeley where he modeled the kinetics of zeolite and supported nanoparticle catalysts using Density Functional Theory and Molecular Dynamics. He performed post-doctoral research at Northwestern University under the supervision of Randall Snurr studying diffusion in nanoporous materials including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and porous polymers. Bukowski started at Johns Hopkins University in July of 2021. He has received a DOE BES Early Career Research Award, an Amazon Research Award, a Doctoral New Investigator grant from the ACS Petroleum Research Fund, a Ralph E. Powe award from Oak Ridge Associated Universities, and a Hopkins Catalyst Award. He is the program chair for the AIChE catalysis and reaction engineering division and program chair of the Northeast Corridor Zeolite Association. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Bukowski to PodCAT!

Prof. Madelyn Ball

Prof. Madelyn Ball is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Michigan State University. Prof. Ball received her B.S. from University of New Hampshire and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin Madison under James Dumesic before conducting postdoctoral studies under Prof. Christopher Jones at Georgia Tech. Prof. Ball's research interests are in heterogeneous catalysis, focusing on design of well-controlled nanoparticle materials for CO2 and natural gas conversion reactions to facilitate sustainable chemical production. Her group uses catalysis and synthetic materials chemistry, operando spectroscopic techniques and well-controlled catalyst synthesis methods to elucidate active site structures under reactive environments for designing and developing improved catalysts. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Ball to PodCAT!

Prof. Christopher Paolucci

Prof. Christopher Paolucci is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia. He is a "Double Domer" having completed his B.S. and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Afterwards, he was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University. The Paolucci group focuses on computer simulations of chemical reactions at interfaces. Research areas include computational catalysis (understanding how current catalysts accelerate chemical reactions at the molecular level, and predicting the performance of potential new ones), and modeling of material synthesis and deactivation for both catalysts and other solid materials. The group uses existing quantum and classical simulation methods and also develops new hybrid methods that bridge micro and macroscopic length scales through the use of techniques such as machine learning and Monte Carlo simulation. For this work, he has received numerous awards and honors, including the NSF CAREER award and the invitation to present as an Early Career Investigator at the 2024 Gordon Research Conference on Catalysis. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Paolucci on PodCAT!

Prof. Tibor Szilvási

Prof. Tibor Szilvási ( seal-vase-she) studied chemical engineering, chemistry, and physics at the Budapest University of Technology, Hungary, where he completed his PhD degree in 2016. After a postdoctoral stay at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Prof. Manos Mavrikakis he joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at The University of Alabama as a tenure-track assistant professor in 2020. Prof. Szilvási's research group focuses on computational catalysis and materials design and has published over 140 peer-reviewed publications. Tibor's research group is funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Education, Department of Defense, the Krell Institute, and NVIDIA. Tibor has received numerous awards including NSF CAREER Award, and Outstanding Junior Faculty Award from the Computers in Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society. Most recently, Tibor was announced as the 2026 recipient of the Early Career in Catalysis Award of the Catalysis Science & Technology division of the American Chemical Society. Tibor also serves as the Graduate Program Coordinator of his Department, Early Career Board Member of Journal of Catalysis, President of the Southeastern Catalysis Society, and Programming Chair of the Catalysis & Reaction Engineering division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Szilvasi to PodCAT!