Brianna successfully presented and defended her PhD thesis work entitled, “Investigating Catalyst and Reaction Microenvironments for the Electrosynthesis of Hydrogen Peroxide via Two-Electron Oxygen Reduction Reaction.” Brianna was co-advised by Professor Justin Notestein and Professor Linsey Seitz. She is the first PhD student to graduate from the Seitz Lab. A heartfelt congratulations, Brianna!!

After wrapping up her research at Northwestern, Brianna will start at Shell as an Electrochemistry Researcher Project Lead!

Ruihan received the CATL-ChemCatBio Graduate Student Travel award from the Catalysis Science and Technology Division. At ACS, she will present her work on stabilizing and characterizing manganese‐based oxychloride catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction in acid.

Congratulations!!

Ruihan’s paper presents a holistic picture of catalyst electronic and geometric structure evolution under various applied potentials by probing electrochemically active surface area, metal dissolution, Ir valence, and surface morphology. Using a combination of electrochemical and spectroscopic tools, we provide fundamental insights to these material degradation processes to enable future catalyst design with balanced activity and long-term stability. Congratulations on this nice work, Ruihan!

This publication was submitted in response to a nomination and invitation for inclusion in the ACS Energy and Fuels Rising Star Issue!

NSF ERC CISTAR hosted a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Program at Northwestern this summer where teachers were paired with faculty mentors and graduate students to gain hands-on research experience, develop new curriculum for their classrooms, and participate in personal/professional development workshops and seminars. Heidi Park from Mather High School (Chicago Public Schools) joined the Seitz lab this summer and worked with several students in the group to learn about electrocatalytic technologies and techniques for analyzing new catalyst materials. We enjoyed having Heidi join us for the summer and look forward to hearing about and participating in her newly developed modules for her chemistry course this year!

Thanks Heidi!

The ChBE Anti-Racism Diversity Equity and Inclusion (ARDEI) Committee just hosted the second, Northwestern Context, Connections, and Community Symposium (C3S). The purpose of C3S is to provide provide Northwestern PhD and postdoctoral scholars from underrepresented groups an opportunity to showcase their scientific accomplishments and meet and network with industrial representatives that have similar backgrounds. This event was open to all students from all departments, disciplines, and research areas.

Jane was one of four students selected to present at C3S, along with a vibrant poster session and two invited speakers (one from industry and one from academia).

Congratulations to Jane and Ruihan who presented their work at C3S. Also a huge congratulations to AJ for organizing and facilitating the entire Symposium!

Matt traveled to Nairobi to participate in the Joint Undertaking for an African Materials Institute, JUAMI, which is a virtual institute that offers intensive, two-weeklong live-in “schools” designed to immerse researchers in a worldwide community tackling the most pressing technical problems of our times. The JUAMI Schools feature presentations from leading materials researchers in classroom and seminar settings, engaging hands-on learning activities, and collaboration building that outlives the two-weeklong program. Matt presented a poster on his work, connected with possible collaborators, and had a fantastic immersive experience. Congratulations Matt!

You can read more about JUAMI here and the workshop in Nairobi here.

The Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience (CESR) at Northwestern hosted a 3 Minute Thesis competition where participants submitted a video recording of 3 minutes or less summarizing their thesis research for a non-specialist audience. Submissions were open to any current Northwestern Ph.D. student working in sustainability. You can check out their videos and more information about the event here.

The Mission Accessible program at Northwestern is a series of “challenges” for faculty to complete and in doing so, revamp their Canvas course content  pages to ensure that they are designed with accessibility in mind. Linsey is one of 31 faculty at NU to complete “Mission: Accessible” this past year. Check out the Mission: Accessible Wall of Fame.

Robby Lu is one of 87 new awardees across the nation for the 2022 DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program; this program will enable him to carry out part of his doctoral dissertation/thesis research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for six months. His project at LLNL will investigate electrochemical production of green cementitious material from silicates in tandem with water electrolysis and CO₂ capture with Dr. Jiaqi Li. Congratulations Robby! The Seitz Lab is looking forward to this new collaboration opportunity sponsored by DOE.

Linsey was delighted to present work from the group on “Tuning Dynamic Materials and Systems for Electrocatalytic Processes” to a group of industry representatives, professors, postdocs, and students with the Michigan Catalysis Society (Chapter of the North American Catalysis Society) in Livonia, Michigan! There were lots of great questions and discussions!