The University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have recruited Orlando Rojas, a Canada Excellence Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, as the UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Circular Biomaterials. He will begin this position in October 2026.

Rojas will hold a joint appointment between UT and ORNL, with his academic home in the UT Institute of Agriculture—UTIA’s first Governor’s Chair appointment—and a research appointment in ORNL’s Biological and Environmental Systems Science Directorate. He will collaborate across biology, materials science and advanced manufacturingRojas currently is the Canada Excellence Research Chair at the University of British Columbia and Director of the BioProducts Institute. His research focuses on bio-based materials and soft matter, and he is internationally recognized for pioneering contributions to renewable materials science.

He has received several prestigious honors, including the Anselme Payen Award, the highest distinction in cellulose and renewable materials research. He is an elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2013), the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (2017), TAPPI (2025) and International Academy of Wood Science (IAWS) (2025). He also received the 2026 Canada International Award (Society of Chemical Industry, SCI), recognizing international leadership and impact in sustainable materials and chemistry-based industries.

Earlier in his career, Rojas served as a Finland Distinguished Professor and was named an inaugural Faculty Scholar at North Carolina State University (NCSU). While at Aalto University, he was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, one of Europe’s most competitive research awards. He is currently Visiting Professor at Aalto University and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NCSU. His recent appointments also include honorary guest professorships at Mid-Sweden University, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (Austria), Universiti Putra Malaysia, and several universities in Asia. He is also a “Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN)” Distinguished Speaker.

Rojas maintains active collaborations with institutions across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. He serves on the Selection Committee of the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation and advises industries and research organizations, including the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, the VALUED Program (Imperial College London, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge), and the Materials Institute of the University of Santiago de Compostela. His research program has secured multi-million-dollar support from industry and government agencies, sustaining an annual budget exceeding $2 million.

He is Emeritus Editor of the Journal of Dispersion Science and Technology and Associate Editor of ACS Biomacromolecules. Over his career, he has supervised 55 postdoctoral fellows, 69 PhD students, and 51 MS students, and has hosted more than 138 international visiting scholars, including sabbatical professors.

With an h-index of 115 and ca. 59,000 citations (Google Scholar, April 2026), Rojas has authored about 700 peer-reviewed papers and numerous conference contributions. Since 2022, he has been consistently ranked among the top 1% of researchers worldwide by citations (Clarivate, Web of Science).