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Hilal Ezgi Toraman leads an interdisciplinary research program at Penn State focusing on sustainable reaction engineering, catalysis, and the valorization of non-traditional carbon feedstocks, particularly plastic waste. The group integrates advanced pyrolysis experimentation with GC×GC-based analytics and kinetic modeling to develop and optimize scalable chemical recycling technologies. Toraman leads multi-institutional projects on mixed plastic pyrolysis and catalytic upgrading, contributing intrinsic kinetic studies, GC×GC method development, and data management to support process design and evaluation. Securing $5 million in research funding as a PI, she has published widely in high-impact journals and has received national and international recognition, including the C&EN Talented 12 and AIChE CRE Pioneers awards. She has held leadership roles as Director of AIChE's Catalysis Reaction Engineering Division and currently serves as president of the Pittsburgh-Cleveland Catalysis Society. Her honors include the Virginia S. Philip L. Walker Jr. Faculty Fellowship and the Wilson Fellowship. Before joining Penn State, Toraman was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Delaware Energy Institute at the University of Delaware. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Turkey, and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Ghent University, Belgium.
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