Meet Our Session Leaders!

Mark Knaebe is a Natural Resources Specialist at the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Marketing Unit, located at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. His work includes Bioenergy-- from comparisons of value to environmental and health consequences. Mark tests and evaluates wood gasification systems that are used to generate electricity from wood pellets. He advises on kiln heating systems and has designed wood heating systems for residential use. Currently, he is constructing a super-efficient condensing wood boiler that he designed to force flue gas temperature as low as possible after burning everything at high temperature.

With the addition of a special heat exchanger, exhaust could reach well below room temperature by using outdoor combustion air. The energy to power a blower accounts for nearly all the inefficiency. (> 95% efficient) Because of the complexity and potential cost he is also working on the best stove that requires no power, using the traditional stack effect. Mark is a frequent speaker on the many aspects of bioenergy and the advantages of converting biomass directly to thermal energy.

Gillian Mittelstaedt, DrPH, MPA, is an Air Quality and Environmental Health Professional, and Director of the Tribal Healthy Homes Network, a consortium that works to prevent exposure to indoor air hazards through research, training, and culturally tailored interventions. Dr. Mittelstaedt also directs the Partnership for Air Matters, providing low-cost indoor air diagnostic and educational toolkits to at-risk communities. Dr. Mittelstaedt recently co-chaired EPA’s Clean Air Act 50^th Anniversary Report, served on EPA’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee, and is Co-Chair of the National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition. She was recently appointed to the National Academies of Science Committee: Emerging Issues in Indoor Air Chemistry. Her research interests include health disparities associated with indoor air pollution and strategies for reducing exposure to fine and ultrafine particles of ambient and indoor origin.

Dr. Philip K. Hopke is the Bayard D. Clarkson Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Clarkson University. He has led the third-party evaluations of wood pellet boilers ranging in size from 25 kW to 500 kW including the utility of incorporating thermal storage capacity. This work involved both emissions and efficiency characterization. They also explored the problems associated with burning grass pellets in wood pellet stoves., His group has also studied the composition and properties of wood pellets from many manufacturers sold across the northeastern United States and the off gassing of CO and carbonyls from stored pellets and effective techniques to eliminate those emissions.

Jeff Hallowell is the Founder and Executive Chair of Biomass Controls, a Public Benefit Corporation. He has been working on control solutions for several decades with applications ranging from nuclear power plants to wood stoves. Jeff has been awarded 21 patents for emissions reduction, controls technology, and thermal power generation, His latest research includes pyrolysis of high moisture feedstocks such as human excreta, manure and textiles into biochar. He can be reached at jeff@biomasscontrols.com

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Ingo Hartmann is head of the research focus area “Catalytic Emission Control” at the DBFZ and has been a scientist in the Thermo-chemical Conversion department at the DBFZ since August 2008. The main objective of the research focus is air pollutant abatement at combustion facilities for gaseous, liquid and solid bioenergy fuels at solid catalysts.Since November 2020 he is assigned as honorary professor for air pollution control technology at the HTWK Leipzig.

Email: ingo.hartmann@dbfz.de | Telephone: +49 341 2434 541
Website: Catalytic Emission Control

Elliott Levine, Senior Fellow, Montgomery County Council (MD) and Vice-Chairman, DC Chapter of the Technology Transfer Society. Elliott has 25 years of experience at the US Dep’t of Energy managing Federal energy R&D programs for renewable biomass energy applications and industrial energy efficiency technology development. Elliott’s more recent experience focused on providing strategic direction for biomass power, renewable heating fuel and enhanced technology for healthier cookstoves for lesser developed countries. Elliott also managed the Federal Biomass R&D Technical Advisory Committee which informs the US Government on strategic biomass energy R&D needs and applications.

Elliott is currently a Senior Fellow with the Montgomery County (MD) Council, supporting economic development and commercialization programs. He is also vice-chair of the DC Chapter of the Technology Transfer Society which conducts forums on regional activities and programs and also hosts an introductory class on this subject. Elliott serves on several boards and committees. Elliott maintains an interest in developing and integrating technology for application to sustainable development and efficient transportation. Elliott resides just outside of Washington DC.

Dr. DesJardin is a Professor with the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo) in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Prior to joining SUNY Buffalo, he was senior member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories in the Fire Science and Technology department. His modeling research efforts in biomass combustion have focused on the use of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of fires with application to fire safety and predicting emission from biomass appliances. He currently serves as the director for the Combustion and Energy Transport (CET) lab and also the Center for Hybrid Rocket Exascale Simulation Technology (CHREST). He is a fellow of ASME and associate fellow of AIAA.

Dr. Assanis is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stony Brook University, an Affiliate of the Institute for Advanced Computational Science and the Director of the Advanced Combustion and Energy System Laboratory. Although he may be green to the wood-heating industry, he is well-seasoned when it comes to combustion. His research expertise encompasses the development and application of advanced experimental techniques, such as optical diagnostics for combustion and spray imaging, as well as computational fluid dynamics models aimed at improving fuel-air mixing, ignition and combustion of alternative low-carbon and carbon neutral fuels in advanced combustion applications. In particular, his team strives to understand the complex interactions between turbulent fluid motion and the combustion chemistry.

The overarching goal of his research agenda is to contribute novel component, process, and system solutions to improve the efficiency of energy conversion, power generation and propulsion systems, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They have recently partnered with Brookhaven National Lab under a seed grant to investigate “Large Eddy Simulations for Superior Computationally Optimized Oxidation (LESS CO2) using Biomass”. To learn more about his group’s research, please visit them at the SBU exhibit booth or check out their website.

Dr. Mirjam Müller studied Energy and Environmental Engineering and works as research associate at DBFZ (German Biomass Research Centre) in the department Thermo-chemical conversion since 2011. She deals with different aspects of emission reduction and process technology in the field of biomass combustion and has worked in several projects on the topic of small-scale biomass combustion systems, recently as project manager. Accordingly, she has experience regarding combustion principles, construction of firing systems and also different secondary emission reduction technologies. In 2020 she completed her PhD studies at the Faculty of Chemistry and Mineralogy of the University of Leipzig. In line with the topic of her doctoral thesis “Investigations on integration and operation of oxidation catalysts in small-scale biomass combustion systems” the application and integration of catalysts is a special focus of her work.

Dr. Nordica MacCarty is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Richard and Gretchen Evans Scholar of Humanitarian Engineering at Oregon State University. Her research is focused on the design and evaluation of sustainable household energy technologies with an interdisciplinary approach combining thermal fluid sciences, engineering design, applied anthropology, and entrepreneurship. She also serves as Associate Editor for the journal Energy for Sustainable Development and Executive Director for Aprovecho Research Center.

Scott Nichols, President of Tarm Biomass, began his work in the biomass heating business in 1994, joining his Father, Jim and Uncle, Lloyd Nichols at Nichols Hardware and Tarm USA, Inc. Nichols Hardware had a large hearth shop and was an original dealer of HS-Tarm wood burning boilers starting in 1974. After closing Nichols Hardware in 2005, the family focused on the biomass heating business completely. Scott is now owner and president of Tarm USA Inc. Tarm introduced Americans to the first bulk fed residential pellet boilers, lambda-controlled wood boilers, dry wood chip boilers, and the first fully automatic wood pellet boilers.

Scott was a founding board member of the Biomass Thermal Energy Council and an original member of the Northeast Biomass Thermal Energy Council. Scott lives in Lyme, NH, with his wife and two children. Outside of work Scott likes nothing more than working on his woodlot, sugaring, gardening, bicycling, cross country skiing, fishing, or hunting with friends and family. Scott holds a B.S. in Business Law and Public Policy from Syracuse University.

Marc Caluwe is a trained mechanical engineer and native of Belgium, Marc Caluwe moved to the United States in 1998 and worked for TUV Sud till 2005 in product testing & certification. Caluwe Inc. was started in 2005 with a focus on residential heating with small European hydronic wood stoves. In 2010 Caluwe expanded its product offerings to include one of Austria’s premier wood pellet boiler lines through an exclusive North American relationship with Windhager. Recognizing the need for proven wood chip technology, Caluwe expanded his line to include Heizomat, one of Germany’s leading wood chip boiler manufacturers with over 35,000 installations globally.

Windhager and Heizomat provide Caluwe with the ability to use diverse woody biomass fuels in a wide range of applications. In 2015 Caluwe entered a relationship with Spanner-RE2 to bring their micro-scale biomass fueled combined heat and power systems to the U.S. market. Through strategic relationships with numerous partner companies, Caluwe has the capacity to design, develop, install, and service projects throughout the country. Caluwe’s 350+ installations stand as testament to its success as one of America’s leading biomass system design/build companies.