Regina Palkovits
Regina Palkovits (born 1980) is a German chemist who is a Professor of Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen University. Her research considers heterogenous catalysis. She was elected a Fellow of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts in 2020. Early life and education Palkovits studied chemical engineering at the Technical University of Dortmund. She spent a year at Lehigh University as a visiting student working in chemical engineering. She joined the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research for her doctoral research, where she studied the use of mesoporous silica in heterogeneous catalysis. She joined Utrecht University as a postdoctoral scholar working in the group of Bert Weckhuysen. Research and career In 2008, Palkovits returned to the Max Planck Institute as a group leader. She spent two years in Mülheim before joining RWTH Aachen University as a Professor of Chemistry. Palkovits has continued to investigate heterogeneous catalysis, looking at how to transform renewable resources into high value products. Palkovits has investigated how biomass, carbon dioxide and plastic waste can be converted into monomers for polymer synthesis and the production of carbon dioxide neutral fuels. Academic service Palkovits leads the Sustainable Chemistry Division of the German Chemical Society. She