Larry P. Walker is a national leader in biofuels and industrial biotechnology, and he is currently the Director of the Northeast Sun Grant Institute of Excellence - leading a fourteen-state regional research and economic development program focused on biofuels and bioproducts. Walker has been involved in a number of biomass to energy projects during his 29 years as a Cornell professor, including an assessment of New York State biomass resources available for ethanol production, farm-scale methane production and co-generation, the application of nanotechnology to discover and study important biocatalysts for biofuels and industrial biotechnology, and the optimization of solid-state fermentation for the production of natural products.
Walker serves on the Executive Committee for the National Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC) based at Cornell. Some of Dr. Walker’s extramural activities include past membership on the National Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee, current Co-Editor in Chief for the journal, Industrial Biotechnology, current membership on the American Council of Renewable Energy (ACORE) Higher-Education Committee, and he serves on the Advisory Board for the Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy. Walker is a recent recipient of a New York Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) faculty development award.
