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On Monday, Nov. 3, the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center (NCERC) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville hosted the NCERC Illinois Ethanol Research Advisory Board Meeting and distributed its annual report to the Board and stakeholders. Chairman of the Illinois Ethanol Research Advisory Board and SIU System President Dan Mahony, PhD, welcomed the Board and the partnerships that have contributed to the success of the more than 20-year pilot plant currently under the direction of Interim Director Yanhong Zhang, PhD.

“We're really appreciative of everything that NCERC does, and also for all the great partners we have,” said Mahony. “Everybody that's here today has contributed to the success we've had under Yan’s leadership.”

The full room of attendees and online participants included Illinois Corn Growers Association (IL Corn), Southwestern Illinois Leadership Council, Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (IL DECO), Renewable Fuels Association, SIUE’s academic partners Denise Cobb, PhD, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Christopher Slaten, PhD, Associate Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, Elizabeth Cali, PhD, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies and State Senator Erica Harriss, international clients and the NCERC staff.

Associate Dean Cali opened the first session with an overview of the awards team and compliance office and post awards team which manage a sizeable amount of funding.

Cali added, “The graduate school sees that NCERC is poised for growth and well positioned, to meet growing demands and biosolutions needs that are coming in from industry partners, community partners, and federal and state sponsors.”

Before presenting more data recapping FY25 and a forecast for FY26, Zhang took a moment to acknowledge who was not in the room: colleague and mentor, Dave Loos, longtime director in biofuels and research at IL Corn.

Zhang then turned the focus of the meeting to NCERC’s primary purpose: community service, supported in large part by an annual $1 million appropriation from the state of Illinois. Not only is NCERC a leading pilot plant and fermentation lab, but the research facility also hosts frequent tours with visitors who range from high school students to farmers to collaborators.

Funders such as Illinois Corn Growers Association IL DECO, Illinois Corn Marketing Board, Bioindustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem (BioMADE) and SIUE have produced fellowship programs, expanded manufacturing capabilities and a workforce training initiatives that redefines the approach to NCERC’s commercial services.

Front and center in both sessions of the annual meeting were the NCERC staff themselves including NCERC Project Manager Lucas Clayton, NCERC Operations Manager Jared Burns and Visiting Research Fellow Elijah Switzer who detailed NCERC’s partnership with the University of Hawai’i and the research of biomass that supports sugar conversion from feedstocks found in the tropics. Switzer (’22, ’25) received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with a minor in Biological Sciences and his MBA with a concentration in Healthcare Administration.

Peter Matlock of The NECERC – UH Project at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo and Colin Walsh of The NCERC – BU Project at Binghamton University both reported enthusiasm for the one-week hands-on laboratory experience their students were able to perform at NCERC on site due to grants provided by BioMADE.

SIUE MBA candidate and NCERC publicity and promotions associate Rebecca Damuth presented plans for upgrades in the areas of marketing and the website, but she also kept the topic of workforce training as the focus.

“Workforce training is in everything that we do. Every project that we work on here, we have students and visiting research fellows working on those projects, and every single grant has some type of workforce training embedded into the project,” said Damuth. “We like to say that we meet learners where they're at every single level.”

“One of the things I brought up for FY 26 is how to strengthen our manpower quality. We talked about the fellowship program,” said Zhang. “Potentially we can do more with workforce training. And we got a new team. With people like Rebecca and younger generations of NCERC people, we are very confident that we can look locally for more collaborations.”

Workforce training and technology scale-up grants have had a direct impact on NCERC’s forecast for the second phase of growth. As the team reported, an expansion of the facility’s structure is planned to incorporate classroom training with hands-on learning opportunities including experiential courses addressing biochemical conversion, fermentation and downstream processing.

“Well, today, America's farm population represents less than half of 1% of the population and less than 1% of college bound students are obtaining degrees in agriculture. For some of you, that is an incredible challenge. I think for us collectively, that is an incredible, incredible opportunity,” said Illinois Ethanol Research Advisory Board member John Caupert, who is CEO of Grain Elevator and Processing Society and NCERC’s previous Executive Director. “It's an incredible opportunity to introduce an entirely new demographic, an entirely new percentage of society, to where their food, feed, fuel and clothing actually come from.”

Additionally, Associate Provost Slaten noted that with financial backing, an expansion of the facility in the range of 10,000 square feet would benefit infrastructure, equipment and even more capabilities within the facility.

“As you can tell today, clearly, NCERC makes an amazing impact, both here on our campus with our students, on other campuses across the country--to our region, to the state of Illinois, to the nation and also internationally. With additional support and opportunities, it has significant potential beyond our current capacity,” said Slaten. 

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PHOTO:  (left to right) Kristi Dula, Office of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology at IL DCEO, John Caupert, CEO, Grain Elevator and Processing Society, Rod Weinzierl, Executive Director, IL Corn, NCERC Interim Director Yanhong Zhang, PhD, Christopher Slaten, PhD, Associate Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, Elizabeth Cali, PhD, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, SIU System President Dan Mahony, PhD, Barb Randle, Business Manager, NCERC, Katie Eilers, Director of Award Management and Post Award Operations and Justin Moore, New Uses Research and Biofuels Manager, IL Corn; Zhang.