Dartmouth’s Lynd to Discuss Sustainable Resources at Rockefeller Lecture

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Lee Lynd

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Professor Lee Lynd of Dartmouth College, an internationally recognized expert in sustainable fuel production and related issues, will deliver the 2013 address in the Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture Series at the University of Arkansas. Lynd will speak on “Bioenergy, Food and the Sustainable Resource Transition” at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, at Giffels Auditorium in Old Main.

Sponsors of this year’s lecture are the Center for Agricultural and Rural Sustainability of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the UA Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

Lynd will address the intersection of energy and food, highlighting their production and consumption by an increasing human population. “Professor Lynd will convey his optimism that well-planned and knowledge-based approaches to resource conversion can sustainably meet future human needs for energy and food,” said Danielle Julie Carrier, UA professor of biological and agricultural engineering, who chairs the lecture planning committee.

Lynd, who is the Paul E. and Joan H. Queneau Distinguished Professor in Environmental Engineering Design at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering, is an expert on utilization of plant biomass for production of energy. His contributions include leading research on fundamental and biotechnological aspects of microbial cellulose utilization. He has led an active research group addressing these issues over the last two decades, authoring over 100 papers, book chapters, and reviews as well as 11 granted patents. A frequently invited presenter on technical and strategic aspects of biomass energy, Lynd has three times testified before the United States Senate, and has been featured in publications such as Wired and Forbes, the “Nova” television series and the Nobel Conference.

He was co-initiator and co-director of the Role of Biomass in America’s Energy Future project, and the resulting “Growing Energy” report in 2004 contributed to a dramatic increase in expectations for cellulosic biofuels and in support from the environmental advocacy community. In 2009, Lynd initiated the Global Sustainable Bioenergy Project, which seeks to identify ways to develop large-scale bioenergy production while simultaneously addressing the global need to feed humanity. His 2011 paper in Nature highlights the potential of bioenergy for positive impact on African food security.

Lynd is also co-founder, chief scientific officer and member of the Board of Directors for Mascoma Corp., dedicated to the development of cellulosic ethanol technologies using a variety of feedstocks. Mascoma employs 125 people and has raised over $150 million in investment capital. The company will soon break ground on a commercial cellulosic ethanol facility in Kinross, Mich. The hardwood feedstock for this facility will utilize the supply infrastructure of the declining pulp and paper industry, thus providing sorely needed employment and economic development.

The Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lectures program was established in 1972 by friends of Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller and assists faculty at five campuses of the University of Arkansas System and the staff at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute in obtaining outstanding visiting lecturers to communicate ideas that stimulate public discussion, intellectual debate and cultural advancement. Past speakers in the Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture Series at the Fayetteville campus include Jonathan Kozol, W.S. Merwin, Billy Collins, Isabel Allende, Buzz Aldrin, Howard Zinn, and Daniel Janzen.