Aaron Socha, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Aaron Socha was an undergraduate researcher of cactus ethnobotany at the New York Botanical Garden. He then worked as an environmental chemist in Watsonville, California to determine pesticide concentrations in water, soil and plant samples. As a graduate student he turned his attention to drug discovery from marine microbes by performing isolation, structural elucidation and synthesis of anthraquinone and peptide antibiotics. As a postdoctoral researcher he investigated microbial lignin catabolism and ionic liquid chemistry, and developed an interest in biodiesel and green chemistry. Before joining the faculty at Queens, he taught general and organic chemistry at the City University of New York’s Bronx Community College from 2011-2016, and served as the director of the University’s Center for Sustainable Energy from 2013-2016.

Dr. Socha is currently a scientific research affiliate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and his active projects with Queens students include synthesis of ionic liquid catalytic solvents from natural products, and engineering of chemical and biological systems for biomass and waste conversion to fuels and value-added chemicals.

Education & Training

Postdoctoral Researcher: Sandia National Lab (with Blake Simmons)
Postdoctoral Fellow: Brown University (with Jason Sello)
Ph.D., Biomedical Science, University of Rhode Island (with David Rowley)
Dissertation: “Chemistry of Antibiotics from Atlantic Actinomycete and Bacillus Bacteria”
B.S., General Science, Fordham University

Selected Publications

Liu S, Gonzalez M, Kong C, Weir S, Socha AM. Synthesis, antibiotic structure-activity-relationships, and cellulose dissolution studies of new room-temperature ionic liquids derived from lignin. Biotechnology for Biofuels 2021, 14, 47.

Sikand M, Mazzatenta C, Wong K, Bush J, Socha AM. Sustainability, Energy, and the Green Economy: An Interdisciplinary Course on Environmental Sustainability and Life Cycle Analysis. J. College Science Teaching 2021, 50, 3, 6-14

Liu S, Das L, Blauch DN, Veronee C, Dou C, Gladden J, Sun N, Socha AM. Statistical design of experiments for production and purification of vanillin and aminophenols from commercial lignin. Green Chem. 2020; 22: 3917–3926

Diez V, DeWeese A, Kalb RS, Blauch DN, Socha AM. Cellulose Dissolution and Biomass Pretreatment Using Quaternary Ammonium Ionic Liquids Prepared from H-, G-, and S-Type Lignin-Derived Benzaldehydes and Dimethyl Carbonate Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.  2019, 58, 35, 16009-16017.

Bradley D, Levin E, Rodriguez C, Stanton A, Williard, PG, Socha AM. Equilibrium studies of canola oil transesterification using a sodium glyceroxide catalyst prepared from a biodiesel waste stream. Fuel Processing Technology 2016, 146, 70-75.

Socha AM, Parthasarathi R, Shi J, Pattahil S, Whyte D, Bergeron M, George A, Tran K, Stavila V, Venkatachalam S, Hahn M, Simmons B, Singh S. Efficient biomass pretreatment using ionic liquids derived from lignin and hemicellulose. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 2014, 111, 35, 3587 –3595.

Sun N, Parthasarathi R, Socha AM, Shi J, Zhang S, Stavila V, Sale K, Simmons B, Singh S. Understanding Pretreatment Efficacy of Four Cholinium and Imidazolium Ionic Liquids by Chemistry and Computation. Green Chemistry 2014, 16, 5, 2546-2557.

Selected Grant Awards

• US Dept of Energy Technology Commercialization Fund 2018-2022. Lignin-Derived Ionic Liquids: Synthesis and Application in Biopolymer Processing ($500,000, co-PI)
• National Science Foundation Advanced Technical Education 1601636 2016-2021. Chemical and BioEnergy Technology for Sustainability ($899,744, PI)
• National Science Foundation Innovation Corps 1443859, 2014-2016. Bionic Liquids ($50,000 PI)
• CUNY 2020 Challenge Grant 2014-2020. Economic Action Plan for Advanced Transportation Technology, Sustainable Fuel and Product Development in NYC ($9,000,000 PI)