Dr. Priya Samudrala is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. She earned her PhD in Applied Chemistry from RMIT University with a research focus on heterogeneous catalysis for converting bio-glycerol into commodity chemicals and fine chemical synthesis through organic transformations. She received prestigious 'Martin Bennett Research Excellence Award’ at RMIT University for outstanding research contributions during PhD candidature.

After her PhD, she continued working as a Research Assistant at the Centre for Advanced Materials and Industrial Chemistry (CAMIC), School of Sciences, RMIT University for about 6 months. She reinforced her knowledge in heterogeneous catalysis and ventured into a new area of developing three-dimensional printed catalyst formulations and their application in sustainable chemical production from renewable sources. She joined Monash University in Jan 2017, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering working on multiple research projects, co-supervising PhD students and teaching Reaction Engineering at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In Jan 2018, she took up a position of an Assistant Lecturer, undertaking teaching and research in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Monash University.

Dr Priya Samudrala hold research interest in the areas of heterogeneous catalysis, material development, biomass valorisation processes, bio-based chemicals and fuel production, process optimisation and kinetic studies. Her research sits in the area of green chemistry and sustainability with a major focus in Catalysis. She has developed a solid background in both experimental and theoretical aspects of catalysis and green chemical reaction processes during her research career.

Novel catalytic materials hold the key to fundamental advances in chemical and energy production, thus, the development of novel, active and robust catalysts for sustainable chemical syntheses, is most important and challenging area for innovation in industrial catalysis. Furthermore, environmentally cleaner processes are essential for solving world’s ecological and socio-economic implications. The petroleum-based fuel and chemical production depletes the world’s natural resources and causes serious environmental damage. To alleviate shortage of fossil fuels and to reduce CO₂ emissions, sustainable production of fuels and chemicals by utilisation of renewable biomass-derived feed stocks to valuable products, would provide a cost-effective and low environmental impact technology ensuring a sustainable future to chemical industries world-wide.

Thus, Dr Priya Samudrala’s research focuses on the development of novel solid catalysts for the transformation of biomass into value-added chemicals and biofuels via economic viable and eco-friendly catalytic processes that would increase the sustainability of biofuels and chemicals industry. Her research primarily sits in the area of green chemistry and sustainability.  She has developed expertise in both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic reactions. She has always been fascinated by catalytic processes and interested in projects that utilise an emerging fabrication technology, three-dimensional printing, which offers cost-effective and facile approach to create well-designed robust monolithic catalytic materials with structural optimisation.