ACS Green Chemistry Institute Advisory Board
The ACS GCI Advisory Board is comprised of members from non-profit organizations, industry, and academia to reflect a broad set of environmental interests and capabilities. The board convenes biannually and assists the Institute in accomplishing its strategic goals.
Advisory Board Members
Dr. Kathryn Beers
GCI Advisory Board Chair
Manager, Circular Chemistry Program
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Kathryn L. Beers is group leader of the polymers and complex fluids group in the materials science and engineering division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Her research interests include microreactors and microfluidics, macromolecular separations, advances in polymer synthesis and reaction monitoring, integrated and high throughput measurements of polymeric materials, degradable and renewable polymeric materials and sustainable materials. She was awarded the Department of Commerce Silver Medal in 2005 and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2007.
Thomas J. Burns
Staff Scientist, Technical Service,
Novozymes North America, Inc.
Tom Burns is a Staff Scientist at Novozymes North America, where he provides technical and formulation support to the company’s customers across the Americas. Burns joined Novozymes in 1992 in technical service, formulating and evaluating the performance of enzymes in detergent products for use in both household and industrial laundry. From 2012-16 he served as co-chair of the ACS GCI Formulators’ Roundtable. Based at the company’s Brazilian office from 1998-2003, he worked as technical and business development manager, covering applications of bio-based products throughout Latin America. Previously, Burns was a formulation chemist at a household-cleaning products company in New York State. Burns began his career as a secondary-school science teacher in Latin America and speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese.
Dr. Elise Fox
CEI Chair
President,
Fox Energy Innovations, LLC
Fellow Engineer, Savannah River National Laboratory
Dr. Elise B. Fox is a Fellow Engineer at Savannah River National Laboratory. Dr. Fox’s research specialty is renewable energy policy. Current projects include the reduction of soft costs of photovoltaics in the Southeastern US and expanding access to renewable energy for low to middle income communities. She served on the Subcommittee on Energy Use and Resources and the Subcommittee on Renewable Energy for the development of the South Carolina (SC) State Energy Plan in 2016. She received her B.S in Chemistry from the College of Charleston in 2001 and has graduate degrees from The Pennsylvania State University, M.S (2004) and Ph.D. (2006) in Materials with a minor in Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering. Her graduate work, under Professor Chunshan Song, involved catalytic hydrogen purification and production by the oxygen-assisted water-gas
shift reaction and the absorptive desulfurization
of fuels.
Dr. Laura McConnell
Principal Scientist,
Bayer Crop Science, Regulatory Scientific Affairs
Dr. McConnell is an analytical chemist with more than 25 years of experience in environmental and agricultural science research. She currently serves as a Principal Scientist in the Regulatory Scientific Affairs group at Bayer CropScience in St. Louis, Missouri. Her role at Bayer focuses on communication, collaboration and engagement with the scientific community on topics relevant to the regulation of agricultural technologies. Previously, she was a Research Chemist and Lead Scientist in the USDA-ARS where she specialized in the investigation of the chemical and physical processes controlling the environmental fate of agriculturally-relevant pollutants. A primary focus of her research was the development of improved conservation practices to mitigate pollutant transport and to provide ecosystem services...
Dr. Audrey Moores
Associate Professor,
Centre for Green Chemistry & Catalysis, Department of Chemistry,
McGill University
Dr. Audrey Moores is an associate professor and co-lead for the McGill Sustainable Systems Initiative-Materials theme at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. At École Polytechnique, she received a doctorate in chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Pascal Le Floch. Her research topic focuses on the development of catalytic processes based on earth abundant elements and low energy synthesis of materials. Audrey is also an associate editor of ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering journal and scientific director for the non-for-profit tech transfer company, GreenCenter Canada.
Carolyn Ribes
Business Analytical Leader,
Dow Chemical
Carolyn Ribes is the Business Analytical Leader for Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure at Dow Chemical. She received her B.S. in Chemistry in 1983 from University at Buffalo, SUNY, and her Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1989 from State University of New York at Buffalo. She joined Dow in 1989 and has worked in Louisiana, Texas, and Argentina and is currently located in Terneuzen, Netherlands. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1982.
Dr. Adelina Voutchkova-Kostal
Ex Officio
Director, Office of Sustainability
American Chemical Society
Adelina Voutchkova is the Director of Sustainable Development at the American Chemical Society and leads the ACS Green Chemistry Institute. Adelina joined the ACS from George Washington University where her research program spans the two frontiers of green chemistry: the development of green synthetic methods through supported catalysis, and the development of predictive methods for identifying chemicals of toxicological concern. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the 2020 Early Career Researcher Award from GWU, and the 2021 Thieme Chemistry Journals Award, among others. Adelina was previously a Research Associate and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Yale Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering. She completed her Ph.D. in organometallic chemistry at Yale with Bob Crabtree, focusing on atom-economical catalytic transformations facilitated by NHC complexes. She earned her BA from Middlebury College, where she worked with Prof. Sunhee Choi on the chemistry of Pt anticancer complexes.
Dr. John Warner
Founder
John Warner Foundation
John Warner is widely recognized as one of the earliest founders and proponents of green chemistry. He co-authored "Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice" in 1998 which introduced the design principles of green chemistry. A prolific entrepreneur and inventor, John works to design and create commercial technologies inspired by nature and consistent with the principles of green chemistry. With over 300 patents, he has invented solutions for dozens of multinational corporations. His inventions have also served as the basis for several new companies. John has published extensively in the fields of noncovalent derivatization, polymer photochemistry, metal oxide semiconductors, and synthetic organic chemistry. Recognition for his work has included the Perkins Medal in 2014 and being nominated as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2011, among many others. He serves as Distinguished Professor of Green Chemistry at Monash University in Australia and the Global Chair for the Center for Sustainable and Circular Technologies at the University of Bath. Today, John leads the John Warner Foundation, dedicated to changing the way chemists do, invent and manage chemistry.
ACS GCI's Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference
The 28th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference will be held June 3-5, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia, with the theme AI-Generated Green Chemistry.
