Dr. Nichole Fitzgerald is a Technology Manager in the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) at the U.S. Department of Energy. She manages R&D projects in BETO’s Conversion Program, with a focus on designing new biobased plastics and new biobased recycling paradigms. Nichole currently manages ChemCatBio, an Energy Materials Network consortium focused on catalysis for bioenergy applications, BioESep, a national lab-led consortium on separations for bioenergy, and the Performance Advantaged BioProducts working group, which consists of researchers designing new biobased products with novel properties. Nichole is passionate about finding ways to get renewable carbon into the materials we use daily and has pioneered several bioproduct and functional replacement initiatives for BETO. Prior to her current role, Nichole served as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy at BETO and was an NIH post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley where she developed highly effective reagents for pharmaceutical applications. Nichole received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University and a B.S. in Chemistry from the College of William and Mary.