Michael (Mike) Talmadge has contributed to safe fuel production operations, technology development, process modeling and analysis for twenty-five years. Mike supports the development of renewable fuel and chemical technologies at NREL through process modeling and techno–economic analysis of biomass to fuel and chemical pathways. He has contributed strategies for incorporating biomass–derived intermediates and finished fuel blendstocks into existing petroleum refining infrastructure through collaborative efforts with industry and projects at NREL. Mike has led initial development of a techno-economic analysis platform for assessing and comparing water treatment and reuse technologies in the National Alliance for Water Innovation. Currently, Mike is leading analysis efforts for low-emission hydrogen production from waste resources in Fossil Energy’s National Laboratory Gasification Consortium (NLGC). Outside of the NREL years, Mike spent over a decade in refinery fuels production and process technology development with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, Valero Energy Corporation, and Johnson Matthey.

Dr. James E. Parks II is Section Head for the Energy and Industrial Processes Section and a Distinguished R&D Scientist in the Manufacturing Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).  He received his B.S. in Physics from North Carolina State University in 1989 and his Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Tennessee in 1995.  Prior to joining ORNL, Dr. Parks worked in the private sector at EmeraChem LLC where he specialized in lean NOx trap catalyst research and commercialization for power generation and transportation applications.  Upon joining ORNL, he conducted research on catalysis and emissions control for advanced combustion engines and renewable fuels at ORNL's National Transportation Research Center.  Dr. Parks’ research conducted in close collaboration with industry has contributed to the successful introduction of emission controls for diesel and other lean engine technologies to maintain energy security and cost-effective transportation for our economy.  After successes in diesel engine emission control, he expanded to bioenergy, fuel and chemical manufacturing, carbon capture, carbon fiber manufacturing, analysis science, and other research areas.  His current research interests include: (1) thermochemical conversion of feedstocks including biomass, waste, and co-blends with coal for fuel, chemical, and energy production, (2) advanced spectroscopic technique development as applied to on-line diagnostics and smart manufacturing, (3) novel applications of catalysts, (4) computational modeling and digital twins for scale up and optimization of processes, and (5) analysis science including chemometric, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) techniques.  Dr. Parks has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and a Google Scholar h-index of 35; he also has 14 patents that have led to technology transfer successes acknowledged in three R&D 100 awards and two Federal Laboratory Consortium awards. He is a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers, a Battelle Distinguished Inventor, and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Chemical Society. He currently serves in the following leadership roles: Lead of the Feedstock Variability, Sensing & Control Task for the National Laboratory Gasification Consortium, Principal Investigator of the Consortium for Computational Physics and Chemistry, and Steering Committee for the Chemical Catalysis for Bioenergy Consortium.

Dr. Nathan Weiland has been a Senior Fellow at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) since 2020, where he works to build and sustain world-class research and development competencies in energy conversion engineering and hydrogen production, transport, storage & utilization.  This work supports the Office of Fossil Energy’s Advanced Energy Systems’ programs in Turbines, Supercritical CO₂ (sCO­₂) Power Cycles, Gasification, Reversible Solid Oxide Cells, Advanced Materials, Simulation Based Engineering, and Sensors & Controls, in addition to supporting the Oil, Gas & Critical Mineral’s program in Natural Gas and Hydrogen Technologies.  Dr. Weiland currently leads the National Laboratory Gasification Consortium, as well as NETL’s efforts to engage industry and other DOE Offices in hydrogen and energy conversion research, development and deployment.

From 2014 to 2020 Dr. Weiland was a research engineer in NETL’s System Engineering and Analysis Directorate - Energy Process Analysis Team, where his work focused on development and economic optimization of novel sCO₂ power cycles and oxy-fuel direct power extraction (DPE) power cycles to help meet our national and global needs for higher efficiency, lower cost, and environmentally responsible electric power generation with fossil fuels.  Dr. Weiland’s prior work with NETL as a postdoctoral student (2005-2008) and a West Virginia University Research Assistant Professor (2008-2014) included low-NOx hydrogen combustion, coal/biomass co-pyrolysis and co-gasification, ash deposition processes in gasification systems, oxy-combustion thermal plasmas for DPE applications, and chemical looping combustion kinetics. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 1997, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2000 and 2004, respectively.