Postdoctoral Fellow, Georgia Institute of Technology, Chemical Engineering, 2016-2018
PhD, University of California, Berkeley, Chemical Engineering, 2016
BS, Pennsylvania State University, Chemical Engineering, summa cum laude, 2011
Honors and Awards
- NSF CAREER Award, 2024
- AIChE 35 under 35, 2023
- Featured Researcher “Women at the Forefront of Energy Research” in ACS Energy Letters, 2024
- Featured Researcher in AIChE Journal Futures Issue, 2023
- The Catalyst Review “Movers and Shakers”, 2022
- MSDE Outstanding Early Career Paper Award, 2021
- Pioneer of AIChE Catalysis and Reaction Engineering, 2021
- Princeton Engineering Commendation List for Outstanding Teaching, 2021
- Princeton SEAS Howard B. Wentz, Jr. Junior Faculty Award, 2021
- US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium from National Academy of Engineering, 2019
- Catalysis and Reaction Engineering AIChE Graduate Student Award, 2015
- Heinz Heinemann Prize for Graduate Research in Catalysis, UC Berkeley, 2015
- Robert J. Kokes Award, North American Catalysis Society, 2011
- NSF Graduate Student Research Fellow, 2011
Service
current
- Program Chair: ACS Catalysis Science and Technology (CATL) Division, 2023-
- Applied Catalysis A: Early Career Board, 2024-
- Journal of Catalysis Early Career Board, 2023-
- AIChE Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Diversity Task Force, 2022-
- Executive Committee for the Program in Sustainable Energy, ACEE Princeton, 2019-
past
- (Chair and Past-Chair: Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York, 2021-2024
- Director: AIChE Catalysis and Reactor Engineering Division, 2020-2023
- Chair: Princeton CBE Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Committee, 2022-2023
- AIChE Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Mentor, 2022
- Invited participant: Journal of Catalysis Future of Catalysis Workshop, 2023
- Invited panelist: The Role of Mentorship in Shaping your Professional and Personal Development as you Navigate your Career in CRE, 2023
- Invited speaker in ACS CATL division Catalysis Summer School, 2022
- Invited panelist: “Rigor and Reproducibility in Thermal Heterogenous Catalysis”, 2022
- Organizing Committee Secretary, Technical Program Committee Member, Diversity Efforts Chair: NACS NAM27, 2019-2022
- Organizer: “Catalyzing Diversity” Luncheon, NAM27, 2022
- Program Chair: Northeast Corridor Zeolite Association Annual Meeting, 2021
- Organizer: Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York Annual Symposium, 2021
- Panel Organizer/Moderator: “Catalyzing Sustainability through Material Design” at Princeton University Materials Science Symposium, 2021
- Discussion leader: Diversity and Inclusion in Catalysis and Reaction Engineering, 2020
- Poster Session Chair/Virtual Symposium Organizer: Northeast Corridor Zeolite Association (NECZA), 2020
- Discussion leader: "Mentorship and Career Guidance" Panel at Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage Gordon Research Seminar, 2017
- Organizer: 1st Annual UC Berkeley Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Student Symposium, 2016
Michele Sarazen grew up as a Sharon Tiger in Sharon, PA. She received her BS in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Chemistry at the Pennsylvania State University, where she researched under Robert Rioux. She received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley under Enrique Iglesia. Her PhD research focused on a molecular understanding of alkene and alkane chain growth on zeolites and other solid acid catalysts. Her work was recognized with the Heinz Heinemann Prize for graduate research in catalysis from UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry and the National Science Foundation GRFP. She then became a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, working with Christopher Jones. Her research included both the synthesis of aminopolymers and their use in adsorbents for the direct air capture of CO2 as well as metal-organic framework mediated synthesis of catalysts for propane dehydrogenation.