Dr. Preda received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 2001 from Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA. Upon completion of his Ph.D., Dr. Preda worked for several years in the areas of drug discovery and biotechnology. Since joining Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) in 2011, Dr. Preda has been actively working in multiple material development areas such as novel energetic materials, smart sorbents, advanced carbon materials, antimicrobials as well as on process development and scale-up. Dr. Preda led the experimental developments of multiple PSI programs for the selective REE extraction from coal ash starting from bench scale process optimization and subsequent scale up to micropilot and pilot operations. Dr. Preda is currently the PI on the DOE Program” High Yield and Economical Production of Rare Earth Elements from Coal Ash“.