Leadership
Blake Simmons is a Deputy Director of the Biological and Materials Science Center at Sandia National Laboratories. He also serves as the overall Biofuels Program Lead for Sandia and manages efforts in the biochemical, thermochemical, and chemical conversion of biomass into biofuels and co-products. A chemical engineer by training, his expertise includes biomass pretreatment, enzyme engineering, biofuel cells, nanomaterials, microfluidics, desalination, and silica biomineralization. He is leading the Deconstruction team at JBEI in the development of new processes and technologies to efficiently liberate monomeric sugars from a wide range of biomass feedstocks.
Daniel is a Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Director of Technoeconomic Analysis at the Joint Bioenergy Institute. He has a shared appointment at the University of Queensland, in Australia, where he leads efforts on technoeconomic analysis of biojet fuel processes. Daniel is the author of three patents and numerous peer-reviewed publications in the field, and his research has been highlighted by Science Magazine, Biofuels Digest, Science Daily, Bioenergy wiki, PhysOrg, Industry Intelligence Inc., among others. He is the co-founder of one company and has consulted for several renewable energy and management strategy companies. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ken Sale is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Biomass Science and Conversion Technology Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He has a background in enzyme optimization using structure- and sequence-based methodologies, molecular dynamics modeling of proteins, and the analysis of proteins using mass spectrometry. He is leading the Enzyme Optimization team at JBEI in the development of enzymes and enzymatic complexes that are suitable for industrial biorefinery operations in terms of temperature and pH. He works closely with fellow director Terry Hazen in the development of a discovery pipeline from the work underway within the Microbial Communities team as a source of new enzymes for the enzyme optimization effort.
Steven Singer is a Research Scientist in the Earth Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He currently studies the functioning of microbial communities involved in acid mine drainage, cyanobacterial hydrogen production and uranium bioremediation, as well as leading an ARPA-E project to transform electricity and CO2 to hydrocarbon biofuels with autotrophic organisms. He is leading the Microbial Communities team at JBEI in the targeted discovery of glycoside hydrolase and ligninase enzymes for biomass deconstruction from thermophilic and halophilic environments using enrichment cultures, functional screens and “omics” methods.
Seema Singh is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff in the Biomass Science and Conversion Technology Department at Sandia National Laboratories. She is a biophysicist and a surface scientist with expertise in probe (AFM, STM), optical (confocal, fluorescence, fluorescence lifetime imaging, FRET, FRAP, biophotonics), and electron (SEM, TEM, ESEM) microscopic techniques. As leader of the Materials Science and Dynamic Studies of Biomass Pretreatment, she will use her expertise in spectroscopy (Raman, FTIR, NIR etc.) in conjunction with electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy to investigate and understand the biomass pretreatment processes/mechanisms in-situ in order to compare these different pretreatment processes that can efficiently convert lignocellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars. She works closely with fellow director Brad Holmes in developing a fundamental understanding of how ionic liquids alter the chemical and physical structure of biomass during pretreatment.
