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.