Other Awards and Honors
2011 Impact on Scientific Community
John Holladay named FY10 PNNL Inventor of the Year
More than 140 staff members were honored at the PNNL annual Recognition & Rewards Banquet—held May 19 at the Three Rivers Convention Center—for their contributions to the creation, development and commercialization of intellectual property. Honorees received patents, developed commercially valuable software products, made key contributions to technology commercialization efforts, and received Federal Laboratory Consortium and R&D 100 Awards in FY10. Jay Grate, Fundamental & Computational Sciences Directorate, was recognized for becoming a Battelle Distinguished Inventor last fiscal year.
John Holladay, Energy & Environment Directorate, received the highest honor of the night when he was named PNNL Inventor of the Year for FY10. Each year, the recipient of this award is selected by PNNL management based on their innovation over the previous two fiscal years that has resulted in the creation of intellectual property, or the potential to create intellectual property.
John received six patents in FY10 alone for work in diverse areas, all unified by the use of renewable feedstocks for the creation of value-added chemicals. Several of his most recent patents were for work to convert sorbitol—available from corn—to isosorbide for creation of novel polymers that are sought after for hot fill beverage containers, replacements for hot filter juice and beer bottles, and engineered thermoplastics.
During his 10 years with the Laboratory, John has overseen significant growth in research volume, particularly in catalyst capability at the Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory, and in sustainability analysis as PNNL seeks to improve the science base for conversion of biomass with respect to understanding water and land use impacts. Much of his research to date has involved the development of new catalysts and processes for conversion of a variety of biomass feedstocks to chemicals. His current research continues down this path, specifically directed at using combinatorial techniques to solve problems in the area of condensed phase heterogeneous catalysis.
John is responsible for PNNL's $18 million research portfolio including biofuels, products and energy—ranging from sustainable utilization of terrestrial biomass and marine systems to fuels and chemicals via chemical and biological catalysis. He has 10 granted U.S. patents and 22 U.S. and foreign patents pending. (announced 5/1/2011)