Prof. Roy A. Periana obtained his Ph.D. at the University of California Berkeley (1985). He then worked at Dow Chemical Company (1979-1981), Monsanto Company (1985-1988) and as a group leader, co-founder and vice president of research at Catalytica Inc., (1994). He then joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, California (2000). At USC, he was a member of the Loker Hydrocarbon Institute and Director for the USC-Caltech-Chevron consortium on catalysis. In 2007, he was appointed Professor and Director of the Scripps Energy Laboratories at The Scripps Research Institute. During his career his work has been published in notable journals such as Science and covered in Chemical and Engineering News, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. His current interests are on the design of catalysts for the low temperature, selective, conversion of small molecules with emphasis on CH4, CO2 and N2.