Justin Michael Huffman, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, earned his doctorate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His primary area of research lies in the biosynthesis of natural products, with a special interest in polyketides. His doctoral work focused on Fum6p, which represents the first characterized example of a fusion P450 with a known physiological function, has been investigated for the role it plays in the biosynthesis of fumonisin mycotoxins. In addition, Justin also investigated the regulatory and biosynthetic mechanisms of the antimycotic HSAF (heat stable antifungal factor). He plans to continue his studies on polyketides and extend his investigations into alkaloid natural products following similar paradigms.

Daniel Curtis Waddell, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, earned his doctorate at the University of Cincinnati. His primary area of research lies in environmentally friendly organic synthesis. His doctoral work focused on developing novel, solvent free synthetic methods using high speed ball milling. He finished his doctoral work within the past year and is excited about joining the Penn State Altoona faculty.

Yimin Zhu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, earned his doctorate at Stony Brook University. His doctoral work focused primarily on synthetic organic chemistry. He completed his postdoctoral training in carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. More recently, he worked as an Assistant Scientist at the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at UW-Madison, where he started his research on lignin, a major barrier against effective utilization of cellulosic biomass for liquid fuels. His primary area of research lies at the interface of organic chemistry and biochemistry. He plans to continue his work in bioenergy, with a concentration on chemistry and biochemistry of lignin and carbohydrate.