Diana Milena Ramirez Gutierrez earned her bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering in 2016 from the National University of Colombia. She received her master’s degree in agricultural and biological engineering (ABE) in 2019 from Purdue, where she is pursuing her PhD in ABE with a U.S. Department of Energy project, biomass liquefaction by enzymatic hydrolysis. In this endeavor, she is developing a strategy for large-scale production and transformation of biomass pellets and aggregates using enzymatic liquefaction. For her master’s project, she modeled the drying kinetics of dehydration performance in specialty crops using two solar drying technologies, the trademarked DEHYTRAY and DEHYMELEON. She is a member of the Laboratory of Renewable Resources and Engineering (LORRE), where she leads training and education of both graduate and undergraduate students. In spring 2021, she participated in the Bayer Innovation Bootcamp. She has served as president and vice president of the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Graduate Student Association and as an ABE ambassador for Latinos Leaders in Agriculture. In her future research career, she wants to explore agricultural products and their potential roles in sustainability and the removal of resources from agricultural waste. Teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated new approaches for lab instruction. As a faculty member, she will improve the learning experience by taking into account that the transfer of knowledge also is a learning path.

Research Interests

Biomass enzymatic liquefaction for bioethanol production