Biofuels Digest recently named UW-Madison professors of chemical and biological engineering, George Huber and Jim Dumesic, to its list of the “Top 100 People in the Bioeconomy, 2013-14.”

Each year, the Digest’s more than 34,000 subscribers are invited to nominate the top 100 “transformative people to know in bioenergy or bio-industry.” Digest editors then compile a list of the most outstanding researchers, industry executives, policymakers, and company executives from all over the world.

Rows of corn and soybeans cover rolling hills, stitched together by creeks and woodlands that compose southwest Wisconsin's agricultural patchwork. These complex landscapes provide clean water, wildlife habitat and climate benefits, yet, historically their value has been measured in just one way: bushels per acre.

Coiled and unmoving, the “Velvet Viper” is invisible among the native plants in Costa Rica’s rainforests. Aggressive and poisonous, the nation’s most dangerous snake is also nocturnal—a constant danger to villagers without access to electricity. 

“The first thing people ask for is a light by the outhouse,” says Ken Walz. “Almost no one has an indoor bathroom. Being able to walk to the outhouse after dark without having to worry about poisonous snakes is important.”

When the government of Ethiopia finishes building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in 2017 or 2018, it will not only have built the largest hydroelectric power-generation plant in Africa, but also stirred up tensions among African nations, and indelibly altered a river that itself has guided millennia of human history in the region.