Kimberly Ogden

Kimberly Ogden is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and is currently the co-chair of the International Society for Water Solutions. Kim’s research focus includes bioreactor design for production of alternative fuels from algae and sweet sorghum and microbiological water quality. She was the engineering technical lead for the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB). Her research in algae to biofuel continues through a Regional Algal Feedstock Testbed program funded by the Department of Energy. The goal of this project is to obtain long term outdoor algal cultivation data that will be available to the public for use in modeling and other research efforts, and demonstrate the feasibility of year round cultivation. Furthermore, industrial and other universities will be able to use the testbeds to validate new technologies such as novel harvesting and extraction systems. Kim is also involved in teacher outreach programs. She ran a NSF Research Experiences for Teachers Program for over ten years, where teams of teachers did summer research in the UA laboratories and transferred what they learned directly to the K-12 classroom through relevant lesson plans. She was also the principal investigator for a NSF GK-12 engineering program. Graduate students worked in junior high and high school classrooms in the Tucson area to provide a water and energy sustainability engineering context in math and science classes.