Dr. Chunshan Song is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Fuel Science and Chemical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University since July 2020. He served as the Director of the EMS Energy Institute (2007-2020), a Distinguished Professor of Fuel Science in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering (1998-2020), and a Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering (2008-2020, courtesy) at The Pennsylvania State University at University Park. He was the founding Director of DOE University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER) consisting of 15 major research universities funded by the US Department of Energy through National Energy Technology Laboratory (2015-2020). He also served as Associate Director of Penn State’s Institutes of the Energy and Environment (2008-2020), and as Director of the International Joint Center for Energy Research (JCER) during 2011-2020, which was established between Penn State and Dalian University of Technology. He specializes in clean fuels and catalysis research including catalytic conversion and utilization of energy resources, including coal, petroleum, natural gas and biomass. His current research interests include catalysis in fuel processing for ultra-clean fuels and fuel cells; CO2 capture, conversion and utilization; reforming of hydrocarbon and alcohol fuels for syngas and H2 production; shape-selective catalysis for synthesis of organic chemicals; catalysis and reaction chemistry for energy conversion; and synthesis and applications of nano-porous catalytic and sorbent materials.
Dr. Song received a bachelor degree in chemical engineering from Dalian University of Technology, China, and a masters degree and doctorate in applied chemistry from Osaka University, Japan. Dr. Song worked at Osaka Gas Company Research Center in Japan prior to joining the Fuel Science Program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State in November 1989. In July 1998, Fuel Science Program became a part of the newly established Department of Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering at Penn State, which was later renamed as Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering. He has held visiting professorships at Imperial College London, University of Paris VI (now Sorbonne University), Tsinghua University, Dalian University of Technology, Tianjin University, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (Dalian), Institute of Coal Chemistry (Taiyuan) in Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Taiyuan University of Technology. He has also served as an advisory board member for US DOE Energy Frontier Research Center, US NSF Engineering Research Center, and as a consultant or advisor for some major energy companies including BP, ExxonMobil, and Saudi Aramco. Currently, he is on the advisory board for 15 professional research journals.
Dr. Song has advised or co-advised 70 PhD and MS students and supervised over 30 postdoctoral fellows. Working with his students, coworkers and collaborators, he has published over 440 refereed journal papers and 33 book chapters, invented 8 patents, edited 15 books and 14 special issues of research journals, delivered 60 plenary or keynote lectures at international conferences, and given over 290 invited lectures worldwide. He serves on several boards and committees for professional societies and international conferences. He has received numerous awards for excellence in research, teaching, and service to the profession. He has been honored by the American Chemical Society with the George A. Olah Award for Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry in 2019, ACS Fellow in 2010, Henry H. Storch Award in Fuel Science in 2010, and the ACS Energy and Fuel Division’s Distinguished Researcher Award in 2011. He has also received awards from two divisions of the North American Catalysis Society including the Herman Pines Award from Chicago Catalysis Club in 2007 and the Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award in 2011.
Dr. Song stepped down from the Director of EMS Energy Institute and Director of DOE University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER) and retired as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Penn State in June 2020. He has been serving as Dean of the Faculty of Science and Wei Lun Professor of Chemistry at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shatin, Hong Kong since July 2020.