Undergraduate Chemical and Materials Engineering student Julie Thomas has been selected to participate in the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) program at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, TN. This is a highly competitive program that allows students to do research with some of the best scientists in the world. The appointee will participate in a research project to assess novel catalytic materials for biofuel applications. Through hands-on laboratory work and data interpretation, the student will learn and apply methodologies to discover relationships between synthesis parameters, structures, and performance of catalytic materials. The ultimate goal of the study is to obtain fundamental insights relevant to the development of chemical catalysts tailored to biomass-derived liquids. The proposed activity will involve capabilities residing in the National Transportation Research Center (NTRC) and the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS).