Dr. Jan J. Lerou is Principal of Jan Lerou Consulting, LLC, which offers consulting in a wide variety of heterogeneous catalytic processes with particular emphasis on the conversion of biomass to renewable fuels and chemicals. He has over 35 years of experience in chemical reaction engineering in academia, large chemical industries and start-up companies.
He recently retired as Chief Technology Officer of Oxford Catalysts Ltd and Velocys, Inc., subsidiaries of Oxford Catalysts Group PLC. Oxford Catalysts produces specialty catalysts for the generation of clean fuels, from both conventional fossil fuels and renewable sources such as biomass. Velocys, Inc. is commercializing processing systems that provide energy and chemical companies with substantial capital cost savings, improved product yields, and greater energy efficiencies.
He was previously Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of NovoDynamics, Inc., a start-up company based in Ann Arbor, MI, which creates and sells leading-edge pattern recognition and data mining software products.
Prior to this position he was technical manager of the Nylon Intermediates business at DuPont. In his 16 year career with DuPont, Dr. Lerou has held a variety of engineering and management positions and has contributed in both capacities in the successful commercialization of new processes which include: fluoromonomers, butane to tetrahydrofuran and ozone safe hydrofluorocarbons.
Before joining DuPont, Dr. Lerou was a research associate in Professor Froment's Laboratorium voor Petrochemische Techniek at the University of Gent. He has published more than forty scientific papers and was awarded nine patents. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering degree (Burgerlijk Scheikundig Ingenieur) from the Catholic University Leuven (Belgium) and a Ph.D. (Doctor in de Toegepaste Wetenschappen) from the University of Gent (Belgium).
Dr. Lerou is actively involved in academic and scientific institutions. He was a visiting professor of Chemical Engineering at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium between 1997 and 2004. He has served on the industrial advisory boards of the chemical engineering departments of the University of Virginia, the University of Houston, the Pennsylvania State University and Washington University, St. Louis. He is Past Chair and Director of the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division of the AIChE and past president of ISCRE, Inc. He is the recipient of the Recipient of the 2008 Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Practice Award from the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
