Manuela is a UOP/HON Fellow currently working on catalysts and process development for Renewable Fuels production, particularly Alcohols to Jet technologies. She joined UOP 20 years ago and held positions in both Research and Development where she commercialized several reforming and propane dehydrogenation catalysts and contributed to the respective process improvements. Prior to UOP, she completed a post-doctoral appointment at Argonne National Lab. working on hydrogen production from the pyrolysis of natural gas and thermochemical water splitting cycles. She has a BS/MS in Chem. Eng. from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania, and a PhD in Chem. Eng. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. She has multiple publications and holds 49 US patents.