Leadership

Director

Josh Schaidle

NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY

Josh Schaidle is a distinguished member of the research staff at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. He serves as NREL's laboratory program manager for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, chief of staff for the Bioenergy Science and Technology Directorate, and lead for the Catalytic Carbon Transformation platform. Research within this platform ranges from atomistic-scale modeling of catalytic surfaces and reactor flow dynamics to pilot-scale verification of waste- and biomass-to-fuels processes coupled with techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment. Josh received his bachelor of science in chemical engineering from the University of California – Santa Barbara in 2006, his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan in 2011 with a concentration in environmental sustainability, and his Distinguished Leadership Certificate from the Ross Business School at the University of Michigan in 2020. He seeks to advance the catalysis and bioenergy fields by working at the interface of foundational science and applied engineering, leveraging a combined experimental and computational approach.

Deputy Director

Dan Ruddy

NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY

Dan Ruddy is a senior scientist at NREL in Golden, Colorado. He is the principal investigator for NREL research projects focusing on the catalytic conversion of syngas, methanol, and carbon dioxide to fuels and chemicals. He also serves as the business development lead for NREL’s carbon management program. Dan received his bachelor of science degree in chemistry from Lafayette College in 2003 and his doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008. His research seeks to integrate the synthesis and characterization of functional molecules and materials to enable renewable fuels production and advance related energy technologies.