Dr. Priya Samudrala is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Monash University, where she commenced in July 2024. She is a chemist with a background in Biotechnology and Microbiology and holds an MSc in Organic Chemistry from Osmania University (2008), where she was awarded the Gold Medal for academic excellence. She completed her PhD in Applied Chemistry at RMIT University in 2016, focusing on heterogeneous catalysis for the transformation of bio-glycerol into commodity chemicals and fine chemicals. Her outstanding research contributions were recognised with the prestigious Martin Bennett Research Excellence Award.
Research Interests
Novel catalytic materials hold the key to advancing chemical and energy production. The development of active and robust catalysts for sustainable chemical syntheses remains one of the most important and challenging areas of industrial innovation. At the same time, the urgent need for environmentally cleaner processes is driven by the ecological and socio-economic impacts of conventional petroleum-based fuel and chemical production, which both depletes natural resources and contributes to environmental damage. To address these challenges, sustainable production of fuels and chemicals from renewable, biomass-derived feedstocks offers a cost-effective and low-impact pathway towards a cleaner and more resilient chemical industry.
Against this backdrop, Dr. Priya Samudrala’s research focuses on the design and development of innovative heterogeneous catalysts including hierarchically structured materials, and bio-inspired catalytic systems — to transform waste and renewable feedstocks into value-added chemicals and clean fuels. Her work sits at the intersection of green chemistry and sustainability, aiming to create efficient and economically viable catalytic processes that advance both the biofuel and chemical industries.
She has extensive expertise in developing mesoporous, microporous, crystalline, and amorphous catalysts, as well as supported nanoparticle systems (mono-, bi-metallic, and bifunctional). Her research integrates catalyst synthesis, reaction engineering, process optimisation, and kinetic studies to establish structure–activity relationships and improve catalytic performance. With a strong background in both experimental and theoretical aspects of catalysis, Dr. Samudrala advances molecular-level understanding of catalytic phenomena while translating these insights into practical solutions for biomass valorisation, bio-based fuel production, and sustainable chemical manufacturing.