Once a month, CABBI organizes a colloquium for all of its researchers. One grad student, postdoc, or PI will give a 20-minute presentation on his or her CABBI research. The presenter finishes the presentation with discussion questions to the audience in order to identify new integration opportunities within a theme, across CABBI themes, and/or with other U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs). The presenters rotates among the themes and partner institutions.
Sujit Jagtap
Conversion Theme
Research Scientist (PI: Chris Rao), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Unraveling Lipid Metabolism in Oleaginous Yeasts: From Storage Lipids to Extracellular Lipid Production”
Date: February 17, 2025
Jung Woo Lee
Sustainability Theme
Graduate Student (PI: DK Lee), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Performance Evaluation and Management Strategies of Different High-Biomass Sorghum Hybrids for Sustainable Feedstock Production”
Date: December 16, 2024
Jie Fu
Feedstock Production Theme
Graduate Student (PI: Amy Marshall-Colon), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Cell-Type Specific Transcriptomics Uncovers Spatial Regulatory Networks in Bioenergy Sorghum Stems”
Date: November 4, 2024
Daniel Bun
Conversion Theme
Graduate Student (PI: Zengyi Shao), Iowa State University
Title of talk: “Engineering pH tolerant yeast Issatchenkia orientalis for citramalate production”
Date: October 7, 2024
Sarang Bhagwat
Sustainability Theme
Graduate Student (PI: Jeremy Guest), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Charting Development Pathways in Precision Fermentation through Agile System Analyses”
Date: September 16, 2024
Can Baysal
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (PI: Dan Voytas), University of Minnesota
Title of talk: “Overcoming Bottlenecks in Plant Transformation and Gene Editing: The Promise of Plant RNA Viruses”
Date: August 5, 2024
Shraddha Maitra
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (PI: Vijay Singh), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Bioprocessing Transgenic CABBI Crops for Sustainable Co-Production of Vegetative Lipids and Cellulosic Sugars”
Date: June 17, 2024
Note: The June Colloquium also included a “Bioenergy 101.” Find it and previous lessons on the Bioenergy 101 page.
Elena Blanc-Betes
Sustainability Theme
Research Scientist (PI: Evan DeLucia), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Climate vs. Energy Security: Quantifying the Trade-offs of BECCS Deployment and Overcoming Opportunity Costs on Set-Aside Land”
Date: May 20, 2024
Daniel Tejeda Lunn
Feedstock Production Theme
Research Scientist (PI: Andrew Leakey), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Optimizing Stomata by Making Fewer Mouths and Synchronizing Breathing”
Date: April 29, 2024
Maolin Li
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (PI: Huimin Zhao), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Unveiling the Journey from Organic Synthesis to New-to-Nature Biocatalysis”
Date: March 4, 2024
Kaiyu Guan
Sustainability Theme
PI, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “The Art of the Possible — How Can Advanced Modeling and Sensing Advance Biofuel Crop Research?”
Date: Feb. 19, 2024
B
ethany Blakely
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (PI: Carl Bernacchi), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Eddy Covariance: The ‘Gold Standard’ for Ecosystem Carbon Flux Measurement”
Date: Oct. 23, 2023
H
yun Gi Koh
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (PIs: Yong-Su Jin, Chris Rao), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Engineering Rhodosporidium toruloides for Enhanced Xylose Utilization”
Date: Sept. 18, 2023
Zhihai Zhang
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (PI: Matthew Hudson), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Major Impacts of Widespread Structural Variation on Sorghum”
Date: Aug. 28, 2023
J
ared Flater
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (PIs: Andy VanLoocke, Marshall McDaniel), Iowa State University
Title of talk: “Nitrogen and Greenhouse Gases: Challenges and Opportunities for SABR”
Date: July 17, 2023
M
atthew Jacobson
Conversion Theme
Ph.D. Candidate (PI: David Flaherty), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Investigating the Mechanism of Methyl Lactate Dehydration on Alkali-Substituted Faujasite Catalysts”
Date: May 15, 2023
N
andan Rai
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (PI: Steve Moose), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Leveraging Plant Developmental Programs to Improve Desired Agronomic Traits in Bioenergy Grasses”
Date: April 24, 2023
Z
oe Pagliaro
Sustainability Theme
Ph.D. Candidate (PI: Eddie Brzostek), West Virginia University
Title of talk: “Unlocking Deep Soils: Linking Depth Gradients in Roots, Microbial Activity, and Soil Carbon”
Date: March 6, 2023
S
huaizhen (Jane) Zhou
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (PI: Jonathan Sweedler), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Mass Spectrometry Based High-Throughput Quantification of Bioproducts in Liquid Culture”
Date: Feb. 13, 2023
Y
u Wang
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (PI: Stephen Long), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Dynamic Photosynthesis of Sorghum and Sugarcane”
Date: Jan. 30, 2023
Melannie Hartman
Sustainability Theme
Research Scientist (PI: William Parton), Colorado State University
Title of talk: “Ecosystem Services Provided by Cover Crops in Rotation with Sorghum: Combining Measurements and Modeling”
Date: Oct. 31, 2022
Yihui Shen
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (PI: Joshua Rabinowitz), Princeton University
Title of talk: “Rigidity and Flexibility of Yeast Metabolism”
Date: Sept. 19, 2022
Therese Mitros
Feedstock Production Theme
Research Scientist (PI: Daniel Rokhsar), University of California at Berkeley
Title of talk: “Miscanthus: Genetics and Genomics”
Date: Aug. 29, 2022
Katerina Estera-Molina
Sustainability Theme
Research Scientist (PI: Jennifer Pett-Ridge), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Title of talk: “Stable Isotope Tracing of Photosynthetic Carbon Belowground through Field Labeling of a California Annual Grassland”
Date: July 18, 2022
Guangde Jiang
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (PI: Huimin Zhao), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Exploring New-to-Nature Reactivities in Native Enzymes by Photobiocatalysis”
Date: May 23, 2022
Kiyoul Park
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (PI: Edgar Cahoon), University of Nebraska at Lincoln
Title of talk: “Metabolic Engineering of Vegetative Oils in Sorghum”
Date: April 25, 2022
Chunhwa Jang
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (PI: D.K. Lee), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “How N Fertility Influences Sustainable Bioenergy Feedstock Production on Marginal Land”
Date: March 28, 2022
William Woodruff
Conversion Theme
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Ph.D. Candidate (Advisor Christopher Rao), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Scale-Up of Lipid Production from Biomass in Rhodosporidium toruloides“
Date: Dec. 13, 2021
Teresa Clark
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Jörg Schwender), Brookhaven National Laboratory
Title of talk: “Triacylglycerol (TAG) Accumulation in Sugarcane — Metabolic and Isotope Tracer Studies”
Date: Nov. 8, 2021
Niuniu Ji
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Angela Kent), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Host Genetic Variation Influences Microbial Assembly and Interaction from Miscanthus Rhizosphere to Endophytic Compartment”
Date: Oct. 25, 2021
Hoang Dinh
Conversion Theme
Chemical Engineering Ph.D. Candidate (Advisor Costas Maranas), Penn State University
Title of talk: “Accelerating Non-Model Yeast Engineering with Metabolic Models”
Date: Sept. 13, 2021
Kate Glanville
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Adina Howe), Iowa State University
Title of talk: “Consequences of Fertilization and Cropping System on Soil Priming and Nitrifiers”
Date: Aug. 16, 2021
Xueyi Xue
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Liqing Chen), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Optimize Sugar Partitioning to Enhance Sugar-Rich Traits in Stem and Delay Senescence by Altering the Source-Sink Relationship in Sorghum”
Date: July 19, 2021
Karolina Michalska and Darren Sherrell
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
Title of talk: “Opportunities for Biological and Environmental Research at Advanced Photon Source”
Date: May 3, 2021
Bijay Sharma
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Madhu Khanna), University of Illinois Urbana-Campaign
Title of talk: “Responsiveness of Miscanthus and Switchgrass Yields to Stand Age and Nitrogen Fertilization: A Meta-Regression Analysis”
and
Mary Lipton and Scott Lea
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL)
Title of talk: “Collaborating on Bioenergy Research with the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory”
Date: April 5, 2021
Yingqi Cai
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor John Shanklin), Brookhaven National Laboratory
Title of talk: “Optimizing Plant Growth and Storage Lipid Accumulation in Vegetative Tissues”
Date: March 8, 2021
Zia Fatma
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Huimin Zhao), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Building a Comprehensive Set of Genetic Toolkit for Metabolic Engineering of Issatchenkia orientalis”
Date: Feb. 15, 2021
Kelsie Ferin
Sustainability Theme
Ph.D. Candidate (Advisor Andy VanLoocke), Iowa State University
Title of talk: “Field-Scale Analysis of Land Use and Climate Change Effects on Water Quality in the Raccoon River Basin”
Date: Dec. 14, 2020
Sebastian Varela
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Andrew Leakey), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Understanding Growth Dynamics and Yield of Biomass Sorghum Using High-Resolution UAV Imagery Time Series”
Date: Nov. 16, 2020
Matthew Waugh
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Yi Lu), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Novel Biocatalysts by Design: Designing Artificial Metalloenzymes for Selective Functionalization and Catalytic Upgrading of Unsaturated Fatty Acids”
Date: Oct. 12, 2020
Mark Burnham
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisors Wendy Yang and Evan DeLucia), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “How Bioenergy Sorghum Influences Agroecosystem Nitrogen Cycling: Implications for Sustainability”
Date: Sept. 14, 2020
Ayman Eid
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Fredy Altpeter), University of Florida
Title of talk: “Towards Oilcane: Improving Genome Editing Tools for Precision Editing of Lipogenic and Agronomic Factors”
Date: Aug. 17, 2020
Pan Yang
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Ximing Cai), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Simulation of Cellulosic Biofuel Expansion through an Agent-Based Model: Investigation of Multiple Policies”
Additional discussion: “CABBI’s Data and Software Knowledge Base and Data Management Updates” by CABBI Data Manager Leslie Stoecker, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: June 1, 2020
Meera Gupta
Conversion Theme
Ph.D. Candidate (Advisor Martin Wühr), Princeton University
Title of talk: “Quantitative Mass Spectrometry for Comparative Analysis of Yeast Proteomes”
Date: May 4, 2020
Madara Hetti Arachchilage
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Amy Marshall-Colón), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Identification of Sorghum Stem-Preferred Genes and their Cis-Regulatory Elements through de-novo Promoter Analysis”
Date: April 6, 2020
Caitlin Moore
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Carl Bernacchi), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “The CABBI Flux Tower Network“
Date: March 9, 2020
Qiang Yan
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Brian Pfleger), University of Wisconsin at Madison
Title of talk: “Characterization of Key Enzymes for Oleochemical Synthesis“
Date: Jan. 27, 2020
Leslie Stoecker
CABBI Research Data Coordinator
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “CABBI Data Management: Tools, Procedures, and Guidance“
Date: Dec. 2, 2019
Hans Müller Paul
Feedstock Production Theme
Ph.D. Candidate (Advisor: Matthew Hudson), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “CROPSR: An Automated Platform for Complex Genome-Wide CRISPR gRNA Design and Validation“
Date: Nov. 11, 2019
Stephan Lane
Conversion Theme
Biofoundry Manager, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Illinois Biological Foundry for Advanced Biomanufacturing (iBioFAB)“
Date: Oct. 7, 2019
Rui Shi
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Jeremy Guest), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Integrating Life Cycle Assessment and Process Design for Prioritization of Biofuels and Bioproducts Production“
Date: Sept. 9, 2019
Nicholas LaBonte
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Erik Sacks), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Genomics-Assisted Improvement of Miscanthus and Saccharum as Bioenergy Feedstocks“
Date: Aug. 5, 2019
Nurzhan Kuanyshev
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Yong-Su Jin), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Discover Sugar Transporters Capable of Transporting Glucose and Xylose Simultaneously”
Date: July 8, 2019
Jeff Kent
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Tara Hudiburg), University of Idaho
Title of talk: “Modeling Energy Sorghum Emissions for the Rainfed United States”
Date: May 13, 2019
Sang Yeol Kim
Feedstock Production Theme
Research Scientist (Advisor Don Ort), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Posttranslational Modification of Rubisco activase to Govern Photosynthesis and Growth”
Date: April 1, 2019
Ming-Hsun Cheng
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Vijay Singh), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Sugar Production from Bioenergy Sorghum by Pilot-Scale Continuous Hydrothermal Pretreatment”
Date: March 11, 2019
Adam Von Haden
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisors Evan H. DeLucia and Wendy Yang), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Improving our Mechanistic Understanding of Plant and Soil Processes to Refine Predictions of Ecosystem Carbon Cycling in Biomass-Based Cropping Systems”
Date: Dec. 3, 2018
Shuai Li
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Lisa Ainsworth), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Testing Oxidative Stress Tolerance in C4 Bioenergy Crops”
Date: Nov. 12, 2018
Jing-Jing Liu
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Christopher Rao), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “System Analysis of Lipomyces starkeyi Uncovered New Gene Targets for Metabolic Engineering”
Date: Oct. 15, 2018
Chongya Jiang
Sustainability Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Kaiyu Guan), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Mapping marginal lands at field scale for the Midwestern United States”
Date: Sept.17, 2018
Hae Jin Kim
Feedstock Production Theme
Postdoc (Advisor Ed Cahoon), University of Nebraska at Lincoln
Title of talk: “Synthetic Design of Plant Oil Metabolism”
Date: Aug.13, 2018
Tong Si
Conversion Theme
Postdoc (Advisors Jonathan Sweedler, Huimin Zhao), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Title of talk: “Automated Biomanufacturing of Microbial Libraries for Promoting Sustainability”
Date: June 4, 2018