Group Members

Postdocs and Research Associates

Dr. Zhenhua (Harvey) Xie

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Understanding and developing advanced catalysts for the upgrading of CO2 and shale gas or renewable hydrogen into value-added chemicals using combined approaches of kinetic analysis, in situ synchrotron characterizations and theoretical calculations.

Dr. Yong Yuan

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Investigating CO2 reduction and hydrocarbon conversion through the design of novel materials, and understanding reaction mechanisms via in-situ/operando characterizations, kinetics, and computational studies

Dr. Zechao Zhuang

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Designing high-performance electrocatalysts by resorting to the fundamentals of solid-state physics and condensed matter physics, and revealing the correlation between the electronic degrees of freedom and intrinsic activity of the catalytic sites through in situ/operando characterization techniques.

Dr. Erwei Huang

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Computational multiscale modeling on heterogeneous catalysis for C1 chemistry; Theory-guided materials design for carbon neutralization and green energy development. Resume

Dr. Sinwoo Kang

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Understanding the mechanism of electrochemical water splitting in membrane electrode assemblies via in situ/operando characterization.

Current Ph.D. Students

Kevin Turaczy

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Studying transition metal nitrides for HER electrocatalysis via surface science techniques.

Daniela Bushiri

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Designing earth abundant electrocatalysts for the production of green fuels in harsh conditions such as hydrogen from seawater and ammonia from waste nitrates.

Samay Garg

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Investigating electrocatalytic pathways for the conversion of CO2 and hydrocarbons to value-added products.

Marcus Yu

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Investigating CO2 activation on metal and metal oxide model surfaces.

Nathaniel Nichols

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Developing stable and active electrocatalysts with reduced precious metal loadings.

William Wei

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Studying tandem electrochemical-thermochemical catalytic processes for enhanced CO2 conversion.

Roulince Bobby Dukuly Jr.

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Designing cost-effective and highly active transition metal carbide- and nitride- based electrocatalysts for electrochemical upgrading of glycerol into valuable chemicals and renewable fuels.

Camille Kuwana

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Developing tandem electrocatalytic and thermocatalytic processes for electrochemical upcycling of CO2.

Recent Graduates/Alumni

Dr. William Porter

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Investigating the epoxidation of olefins using surface science techniques.

Dr. Hansen Mou

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Investigating the electrocatalytic properties of transition metal carbides and oxides for the reduction of alcohols to value-added products.

Dr. Neal Biswas

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Optimizing the electrocatalytic activity of transition metal carbides for hydrogen evolution and CO2 reduction.

Dr. Zhexi Lin

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Catalytic transformation of biomass-derived oxygenates with metal carbide, nitride, and oxide catalysts using combined DFT calculations, model surface experiments, and powder catalysts evaluations. Resume

Dr. Lea Winter

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Catalytic catenation of CO2 and methane to form hydrocarbons using non-precious metal catalysts and plasma. Resume

Dr. Nongnuch Artrith

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Atomistic computational materials simulations for energy applications, and development of machine learning models for accelerating the generation of fundamental materials insights (http://ann.atomistic.net).

Dr. Steven Denny

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Probing transition metal carbides as catalyst supports for a broad range of electrochemical reactions. Characterizing TMCs using surface science techniques.

Dr. Qun He

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Synthesis of nanomaterials for  applications in energy conversion and storage. Materials analysis and mechanistic study using synchrotron-based spectroscopic techniques (XAFS, XPS, UPS, FTIR, XRD). Resume

Dr. Ji Hoon Lee

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Developing and analyzing novel functional materials for energy storage and conversion with in-situ X-ray techniques. Resume

Yumeng Liu

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Developing the electrocatalytic activity of transition metal carbides for CO2 reduction and ethylene evolution.

Dong Tian

Email: [email protected]

Research Interests: Study thermochemical (alkane conversion, CO2 hydrogenation) and electrochemical (HER, CO2RR) reaction mechanisms on metals and supported metal catalysts by Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. Resume