Chris Nicholas is Co-Founder and President of Låkril Technologies. Prior to founding Låkril, he spent 15 years at Honeywell UOP in technical and managerial roles primarily focused on inventing and catalytically testing new materials and processes. Particular foci include heterogeneous catalytic processes such as olefin oligomerization and alkylation, synthesis of inorganic materials (primarily metal oxides and zeolites), process engineering, molecular adsorption, and olefin metathesis. For this work, he was awarded the 2020 Herman Pines Award in Catalysis.

Nicholas earned a Bachelor of Arts from Kalamazoo College and a Ph.D. at Northwestern University. He is a 25-year ACS Member and an AIChE Senior member who is an inventor on more than 115 U.S. and foreign patents. He is the co-author of 30+ peer-reviewed journal articles and a book chapter.