Dr. Jesse Hensley joined NREL in 2009 as a chemical engineer in the Thermochemical Process R&D division of the National Bioenergy Center. Jesse currently serves as the principal investigator for two core DOE projects with a research budget in excess of $1 million per year. Since joining NREL, he has designed and built three state-of-the-art reactor systems for characterization of heterogeneous gas-to-liquids catalysts, and he collaborates with several industrial partners to advance the state of the art in mixed alcohol catalysis. He also has designed and managed the construction of a pilot-scale biomass syngas cleanup system and pilot-scale gas-to-alcohol reactor system. Jesse works alongside other task leaders, is mentoring a graduate student and an undergraduate intern, and serves as a point of contact on NREL's pressure safety panel. At present, Jesse is developing opportunities for next-generation catalysis research, such as hydrocarbon gasoline substitutes from syngas and syngas intermediates.