The Department of Chemistry is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Orlando Rojas as a Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Forest Bioproducts. He shares a joint appointment with the Faculty of Applied Science, Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering and Faculty of Forestry, Department of Wood Science. He joined UBC in December 2019.
Dr. Rojas comes to us from Aalto University in Finland, where he led a national research cluster to advance the Finnish materials bioeconomy. He is the 2018 Recipient of the Anselme Payen Award and is an elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society and the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
At UBC, he will lead the UBC BioProducts Institute in the transition to a sustainable bio-based circular economy by using plant-based resources. Nanomaterials, colloids and surfaces form the basis of Dr. Rojas' cross-disciplinary approach to understanding the fundamental principles involved in the design, manufacture and performance of biobased systems.
His research group, Biobased Colloids and Materials (BiCMat), focuses on the science and engineering of self-assemblies and structural hierarchies in multicomponent hybrid materials, upward from the molecular and colloidal levels. Multiphase systems are at the core of some of his research. He has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers and is recognized worldwide for his scientific impact in the area of nanocellulose.