Rajesh Sani

Brief Bio

In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate sciences and bioengineering courses at South Dakota Mines, I have been conducting, supporting, and overseeing a significant amount of fundamental and applied research in the areas of bioenergy. We have one patent, nine invention disclosures, and published over 95 peer-reviewed articles in high impact factor journals and have contributed to over 18 book chapters. We have edited nine books and one proceedings. I have been on proposal panels for several Federal Agencies. I have served the Industrial Microbiology profession as “Biocatalysis Program Committee Member” of the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB), and technical session chairs at the Annual American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Society for Microbiology and SIMB, and associate editors for Nature-Scientific Reports, Frontiers of Microbiology, and MDPI Microorganisms. I have also been leading a research consortium (BuG ReMeDEE) funded by the NSF with the aid of 84 scientists and engineers.

Research Expertise

Over the past 14 years, I have been the PI, co-PI, or Senior Personnel on $44.5 million (current $34.86 million) in funded research for 41 research projects. Research activities of my group are focused on both basic and applied research in Extremophilic Bioprocessing, Rules of Life in Biofilms grown on 2D materials, Space biology, Biocatalysis, Biopolymers, Gas to liquid fuels, and Genome editing of bacteria. My group has been working on extremophiles isolated from the deepest mine in North America, Homestake Gold Mine (7,800 ft.) for solid waste conversion under thermophilic conditions (≥60ºC). Homestake Gold Mine, known as Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), is in the Black Hills, South Dakota, USA. Using soil/biofilm samples from the SURF, we have isolated 560 unique thermophilic cellulose- and xylan-degrading and -fermenting pure cultures. These unique thermophiles are currently being used to produce biofuels and value-added products in single step bioprocessing of various inexpensive regional untreated biomass.

Teaching

In the past fourteen years here in the US, I have taught 15 different courses of Extremophilic Bioprocessing, Biochemical Engineering, Biochemistry, and Microbiology courses to undergraduate and graduate students at the South Dakota Mines and Washington State University, Pullman WA, and tried to integrate Engineering Sciences with Biological Sciences. Out of 15 courses, 6 courses were new which were developed by me. For example, I have introduced the concepts of “Extremophilic Bioprocessing” in a graduate course “CBE 714 Microbial and Enzymatic Process”. I have received a prestigious “Visiting Teaching Professorship award” from American Society of Microbiologists to teach a course on “Anaerobic Microbial Processes for Energy and Environment” in India. I have served as the resource person for a workshop, and delivered lectures for 10 hours on “Extremophilic and Microbial Processes for Biofuels” in India. We have authored a textbook on “Extremophilic Enzymatic Processing of Lignocellulosic Feedstocks to Bioenergy”.