Dr Michelle K. Kidder

Dr. Michelle K. Kidder is a Senior Research and Development Staff Scientist, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). In addition, she currently serves as an ORNL Program Manager for the Department of Energy-Fossil Energy Carbon Management in Utilization, and Scientific Lead for Net Zero Carbon strategies. Her research focuses on novel material development and processes for alternative fuel and chemical production from renewable energy resources. She has established new approaches, including modeling, to elucidate underlying reaction mechanisms that enable further design and control of material properties for predictive, optimal performance and scale-up. Her leading efforts have helped to describe the impacts of complex interfacial chemistries in carbon capture and utilization from thermal and catalytic conversions of small molecules such as carbon dioxide, up to larger molecules found in biomass and lignin, to help improve technologies and accelerate the deployment of sustainable chemicals and fuels. Dr. Kidder has over 125 peer-reviewed journal publications and preprints, a book and 5 patents. She has served in several Executive Committee roles for the National American Chemical Society Division of Energy and Fuels and in 2018 was named an American Chemical Society Fellow. In 2019 she was awarded the U.S. Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) in Research. She received her BS in Chemistry from the State University of New York at Brockport and her PhD in Physical Organic Chemistry from South Dakota State University.