Integrated Forest Biorefineries

Professor Lew P. Christopher has twenty years experience in wood science, the pulp and paper industry, biotechnology, and bioprocessing. His research output exceeds 230 scientific contributions including peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, technical reports, invited lectures, and conference presentations. He is also the inventor of several international patents. For eleven years, Professor Christopher worked in research and development at Sappi, a large international pulp and paper company. He was also Affiliate Professor at the University of the Free State and University of Pretoria in South Africa. Now Director of the Center for Bioprocessing Research and Development at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Professor Christopher leads a large team developing technologies for production of biomass-derived biofuels and value-added bioproducts. He is also on the Editorial Board of several international journals and is an active member of a number of professional societies. He has chaired sessions at various international biotechnology conferences and, in 2004, organized the 9th International Conference on Biotechnology in the Pulp and Paper Industry. Dr Christopher is currently serving on the National Science Foundation Industrial Advisory Board of the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center on BioEnergy R&D and on the International Scientific Advisory Committee on Renewable Resources and Biorefineries.

Dr Christopher has background in wood science, pulp and paper technology, industrial biotechnology, chemical and biochemical engineering. He has been working in the area of Pulp and Paper, Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing for the past twenty years. His research output exceeds 220 scientific contributions including peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, technical reports, invited lectures and conference presentations. He is the inventor of several international patents. Dr Christopher has worked at the R&D of a large international pulp and paper company (Sappi) for eleven years. He has also worked as Affiliate Professor at the University of the Free State and University of Pretoria in South Africa. He has taught courses in Biochemical Engineering, trained and mentored more than 35 graduate students and post-doctoral scientists. Currently he serves as Director of Center for Bioprocessing Research and Development at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota, USA. He leads an interdisciplinary team of over 60 faculty, staff and students from 8 departments at two universities in South Dakota (School of Mines in Technology in Rapid City and South Dakota State University in Brookings) with the overall goal of developing technologies for production of biomass-derived biofuels and value-added bioproducts. The Center has expertise that covers the entire bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass from biomass development and logistics through pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation to downstream processing and end-product recovery. Dr Christopher is a member of the Editorial Board of several international biotechnology journals. He is also an active member of several professional societies such as American Chemical Society (ACS), Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI), Society for Industrial Microbiology (SIM) and American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). He has chaired sessions at several in