Regina Palkovits is Full Professor for Heterogeneous Catalysis & Chemical Technology at RWTH Aachen University. She graduated in Chemical Engineering from Technical University Dortmund in 2003 and carried out her PhD under supervision of Prof. Ferdi Schüth at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung until 2006. Afterwards, she joined the group of Prof. Bert Weckhuysen at Utrecht University as postdoctoral fellow. In 2008, she returned as a group leader to the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung and since 2010 she is Professor at RWTH Aachen University. Her research focusses on the design of catalysts and processes for the efficient valorisation of renewable resources. Professor Palkovits currently heads the Sustainable Chemistry Division of GDCh. She received numerous awards, including the 2019 EFCATS Young Researcher Award, the 2016 DECHEMA Award, and the Innovation Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the Young Researchers category. She is a Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion and as of 2020, a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.