Prior to joining the faculty at Lowell, Wan-Ting (Grace) Chen is a postdoc research associate in the School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. Grace received her B.Sc in Chemical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, M.S. and Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from the University of Illinois. Grace’s PhD research work focused on developing a synergistically integrated waste-to-fuel system that simultaneously produces biofuel and treats wet biowaste via algae growth and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). In particularly, Grace’s PhD work contributes to the area of upgrading complex HTL biocrude oil converted from biowaste into transportation fuels by distillation, esterification, and catalytic treatments. Grace’s ongoing work focuses on valorization of plastic waste into useful products, including pristine polymers, fuels, specialty chemicals, and monomers.