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Profile: Benjamin Hammel

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Profile: Benjamin Hammel Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/09/2024 - 00:00

Daniel Morton

Ben Hammel is a graduate student in the Dukovic group at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, who is using advanced microscopic techniques with Sadegh Yazdi to provide insights into the relationships between materials structures and properties, specifically materials associated with renewable energy research. We caught up with Ben to find out more about what led him to this research area, what excites him about this field of study, and what he gets up to outside the lab.

Where did you grow up?

I am from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I grew up outside the city limits, on the southwest mesa. There are a lot of alfalfa farms and other agricultural industries around there. One of the really cool things about that part of New Mexico is the rich cultural heritage, there is a lot of cultures coming together, with such a long history. Some of the earliest settlements in the United States are in New Mexico!

What did you get up to as a kid?

I enjoyed exploring outside and hiking. Lots of great mountains near Albuquerque and good camping in northern New Mexico.

What drew you into science and research?

New Mexico is kind of this secret hub for scientific research. There is such a rich community of scientists and researchers there and a long history of amazing work. The Manhattan Project, Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs – they set up these huge institutions for research. These all have a trickle-down effect that has impacted a huge number of people and was definitely something that played a big part in my early thinking.

I started doing research at a really young age. As a freshman in high school, I wrote on my resume that my goal was to become a particle physicist! This got passed along to a retired Sandia National Labs scientist, Pace VanDevender, who then took me under his wing. I worked with him as a summer research assistant that year, and it made me think that my path would lead to working at Sandia.

When I was 16, I had the opportunity to work in a chemistry lab at Sandia National Labs – prior to that I had been all about physics and electrical engineering. I was very much interested in energy research and I was really into building projects and devices, such as a regenerative bicycle braking system. I didn’t really like chemistry and I started from basically nothing. On my first day, the researchers in the lab (LaRico Treadwell and Daniel Yonemoto) took me through my first reaction, how to calculate the amount of reagents and how to mix them – I didn’t even know how to do a mass balance! The support I got from that lab (Tim, Rico, Daniel, Jeremiah, Francesca, Diana, and Fernando to name a few) was fantastic and very rapidly chemistry became my main interest. My mentor, the venerable Timothy J. Boyle, said “Ben, learning chemistry in this lab is like learning how to drive in a Lamborghini!” I had a very flexible school schedule that enabled me to work at Sandia a lot. And I fell in love with chemistry.

So, you were hooked on research at a young age, how did this inform your decisions about university?

I really wanted to find a way to combine my early interest in building things and engineering with my passion for chemistry. The University of Pennsylvania has this program called the Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research, or VIPER, that gives you the chance to do 2 degrees and that really drew me in. I did chemistry plus materials science and engineering and I stuck with those all the way through.

I was looking for ways to combine making molecules with applications in nanoscience, and that led me to working in the lab of Christopher Murray. I was looking for paid work and my Mom said “You can either work as a dishwasher, or you can work in a chemistry lab”, so I was glad that I persuaded Chris to let me join his lab.

Later during my undergraduate degree, in 2019, I did an internship at NREL, and I ended up working on something completely different, microbubble insulation. This was much more a materials engineering project working with researchers Lin Simpson and Chaiwat Engtrakul. We were gluing bubbles together to form foam bricks for use in insulation. The aim was to try and make something that was cheap, had high performance, and robust to damage and defects.

Coming out of that internship I realized that what really fascinated me was the fundamental chemistry I was doing more than the engineering aspects. I became very interested in the fundamentals of what was happening at the surfaces of these microbubbles, much more than the engineering challenges, and that is what steered me more toward chemistry and materials science.

I really enjoyed my time at NREL, both the research and the opportunities to spend time outdoors, it was one of the big draws when I was looking into graduate school.

Describe the research that you are involved in now

I work on the fundamental end of materials and energy research. We aim to learn how we can make nanomaterials that are better catalysts, which involves fabricating these nanomaterials in an extremely precise fashion, so that we have clear understanding about the materials structure and properties. Of specific interest is the electronic structure, since this impacts how it absorbs light. Armed with this fundamental understanding we can better guide the design of the next generation of materials for energy harvesting, storage, and transport. Working out how the structure of a material influences its properties is what really interests me at the moment.

Your research involves a great deal of collaboration, how has that impacted your work?

I think my experience of working in both engineering and chemistry has helped me connect with folks from different disciplines. I have learned that there are many ways in which teams are forming in the energy sciences, and it’s these teams that are doing the really cool science. It’s also interesting to consider some of the social and economic impacts of doing research and thinking about cost and other factors that are going to dictate which technologies get commercialized.

Early on I wanted to be involved in every part of the research spectrum, from discovery to application. But you can’t do it all. And as I have specialized, I have really enjoyed working as an integral part of bigger research teams, where I can be aware of the big picture, make meaningful contributions through my specialty, and engage and learn from others.

What do you enjoy doing outside of the lab?

I do really enjoy spending time outdoors, but my main hobby is gaming. I play a game called League of Legends, and at one point I was in the top 0.1% of players online. It got pretty competitive and required a ton of work. I entertained the idea of playing professionally. But when I ended up playing against some professional players, I quickly realized there was no chance I could ever go pro! I play a lot more casually now.

What would you say to someone considering a research path?

For me I found that scientists and engineers operate in quite different ways, and when you start taking both sets of classes you rapidly pick up on this. If someone is trying to do the same kind of dual pathway, it is hard at first, but it really is worth persevering. Having expertise in one area is important but having a more general perspective can come in very useful and gives you a broad skillset. You can think at a bunch of different scales, and from different perspectives, which I found challenging at first but have found to be very useful.

What are the future impacts of your research that you are excited about?

I think virtual reality displays are going to bring huge benefits. The most expensive part of these at the moment is the display. Engineering new materials that are super small and super bright will make these really high-resolution. We are going to get this amazing technology that is going to have a lot of great practical applications, I think VR will be a game changer.

Microscopy is also blowing up right now. It is now almost routine to look at atoms, which really changes how you think about and make materials. We are reaching higher and higher levels of precision, which I think is going to open the door to new applications. I don’t know what those are going to be!

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Profile: Kat Knauer

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Profile: Kat Knauer Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/07/2024 - 00:00

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Profile: Paige Brimley

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Profile: Paige Brimley Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/28/2023 - 00:00

Daniel Morton

Paige Brimley is a Graduate Student at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and joint member in the research groups of RASEI Fellows Charles Musgrave and Wilson Smith. A 2019 recipient of the DOE Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need Fellowship (GAANN), Paige volunteered her time in 2022 to act on the Steering Committee of the United Nations Human Rights Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, while still performing her research on renewable energy generation and carbon removal technologies. Paige sat down to tell us a little more.

Where are you from?

I grew up in Salt Lake City in Utah and I did my undergraduate at the University of Utah where I majored in Chemical Engineering, which I am also doing my degree at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder in. I spent my childhood just getting to hike, and ski and play soccer, I was really lucky. I got to be outside a lot, that helped my interest in science and the natural world.

What did you like to do as a kid?

Soccer was my biggest activity as a kid, I played every day after school and usually one or two days on the weekend. I loved it and I made some really good friends. It was a great trial for engineering – you have to work on a team, you have to communicate well, and you have to let your ego be at the wayside, and it was also just super fun. I got to go to southern Utah, and sometimes places in Idaho to play tournaments. The coaches always told me “You are going to miss this when you grow up” and I didn’t believe them, but I totally do!

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I loved reading fantasy and Sci-fi novels, and that made me want to be a writer, but I also loved my science classes, which made me think I wanted to be a doctor. I took a bio class in high school that really engaged me. I was caught between English literature and science. I enjoyed chemistry, but my biology high school teacher was really dynamic and would do these beautiful chalk board drawings that really captured my attention. I was also one of those kids that wanted to do stuff that I enjoyed, rather than anything specific career-wise. My Dad was super supportive about education and always supported me when it came to my academic goals.

What are your hobbies now?

I enjoy running – I got so used to having activity everyday through soccer that when I stopped playing in college, I really missed it and realized that it was something valuable in my day, so I found running to be a good way to meet that need. I love to climb and I still love to ski, both cross country and downhill. Getting outside helps me stay focused and motivated for my research, because it can be easy to get disconnected when I’m in an office all day. I got into baking sourdough bread in college, and that has become something that I do pretty consistently. A friend of mine is a great potter and I have recently been taking a few classes with her. My research is computational, so having that very hands-on tactile experience, that is not screen-based, is really nice.

Speak about some of the strong influences in your life?

My high school bio teacher, Mr. Henschel, he was important in helping me be interested in science. My high school art teacher helped me, art was something different that I hadn’t really gotten into, so he was really foundational in encouraging me in doing things that I was uncomfortable doing, and in which I hadn’t had prior experience doing. I am definitely a type A person, I gravitate to things that I am good at, so it was really important for me to have a teacher who encouraged me to keep trying at things that I was not immediately good at.

In college I had a couple of amazing professors and mentors at the University of Utah. Tony Butterfield was an incredibly supportive, warm, and giving person, and he provides lots of opportunities for students to talk with him about engineering and dealing with the college experience. Kody Powell, he gave me my first real research experience, he leads a program that does manufacturing energy audits. Working on this expanded my mind on what I could with engineering and where my interests were. He was the first person that I worked on computational research with, and I hadn’t seen many women in this area, so having a mentor who was supportive was foundational for me going on to grad school to do computational research. Kody and Tony were both very helpful when I was putting together my applications and thinking through my choices.

Another person is a really good family friend, Julie Epperson, who was a constant presence in my childhood. She is someone who shows up for her people, and she was always there for me. She taught me how to really listen and be there for people you care about, even if they don’t ask or communicate that they’re struggling.

Tell us a little about your area of research

I am broadly working in electrochemical energy systems. Our lab specifically works on electrolyzers which make chemical products from electrical energy. Right now, I am working on water electrolysis, which produces hydrogen by splitting water, and CO2 reduction which takes CO2 (ideally captured from the air or industrial process) and converts it to value-added products such as ethylene or formate. The idea is that we could use renewable energy to power these processes and substantially decrease our reliance upon fossil fuels for energy and chemical production.

These devices are complicated though- they have very complex chemical reactions that are affected by the presence of large electric fields, contaminants, multiphase flow, etc. Additionally, these systems need to be very energy and resource efficient. Because of the many length scales involved, it can sometimes be very difficult to experimentally diagnose problems within the system and determine where energy in-efficiencies are coming from. What I do is the computational modeling of the device components, such as the membrane or electrolyte/catalyst interface, to try and better understand the processes occurring during operation, and identify ways to design better devices.

I work with a lot of experimentalists to better understand these systems. All of my projects are very collaborative, and I typically have an experimental counterpart who I work with to define research questions to investigate together.

I really enjoy this work because it has a lot of potential applications. These strategies can be used for chemical manufacturing, producing renewable energy, carbon capture, etc.

What would you say to someone considering a similar research career?

I think this depends on what stage they are at. As an undergraduate who is interested in renewable energy and considering grad school, they should try their hardest to get a research experience. It is the best way to decide if this is the kind of thing you would like to do. If it is hard to get that kind of experience, talk to your professors, look up some professional conferences in your area and see what folks are presenting on to understand what people in the field are looking at.

There are also a lot of startups in this area, so poke around at those. There are startups in energy policy, technology, or research, this will give you a good idea of the questions that people are asking and what problems they are looking to solve, and which of these are of interest to you. The Department of Energy’s website is also a good place to look just to get a general idea of research priorities in this area.

A great resource is to reach out to the students who are doing the research – send them an email. Ask about the work, the environment and what their experience is like. I am always happy to talk to someone who is interested in finding out more.

You were recently involved with the organization of the United Nations Right Here Right Now Human Rights Summit that was held in Boulder in late 2022. Tell us a little more about that experience.

My research advisor nominated me to join the Steering Committee. My motivation for doing this kind of research is improving the quality of people’s lives and in particular those that are impacted the most by climate change, so this was something that I was extremely interested in being part of. I took a class during my undergraduate degree that talked about historical chemical catastrophes, and these accidents were almost always located in places that were poor, racially segregated, or had little say in whether they wanted a chemical plant near them. The communities most impacted by climate change are those that are underserved and who contributed much less to the causes of climate change, and I wanted to be part of meeting that addressed these issues head on.

It has always been striking to me how disproportionate the impacts of climate change and the fossil fuel industry are. The communities most impacted by climate change are those that contributed the least to it and are therefore usually less prepared to respond to its impacts. One of the main things that made me excited to be part of this conference is that you can’t separate your research from the people it impacts,, so this was also a wonderful opportunity for me to learn more about the human side of these issues and hear from experts who think about this all day. I think about technology and computer modelling, but I know I can stand to learn the most from people who think about the human impacts of the devices I study. I went to a conference focused on carbon capture technologies last year, and the whole discussion was around “we need to do carbon capture”, but there were a few people who spoke up and said yes, and we need to think about how it is going to impact people and how, as a society we utilize carbon capture.

We need to keep working towards a just energy transition and we need to do everything possible to ensure equitable energy access, as well as carbon capture. These interactions really helped shape my thinking around these issues, especially in hearing from the diverse range of experts that we were able to bring together for the summit.

I firmly believe that you cannot tell people who have electricity to stop using it because it is coming from a fossil fuel source. You need to provide a viable renewable alternative and it needs to be in a way that engages, benefits, and builds communities, helping them to be sustainable and sufficient in a way that they are resilient to natural disaster, climate change, and geopolitical conflicts.

Tell us a little more about your role in the organization of this summit.

I was one of the student representatives on the Summit Steering Committee. A lot of the work that I was involved in was suggesting panel participants, defining what the panels would be, and going through and vetting participants. The idea was that we needed to make sure that we built a summit around global diversity, providing good representation and making sure that voices were heard. The guidance we received from the United Nations was to think globally, to make sure that we were inviting people from all over the world.

We talked a lot about having a youth component running through the summit, folks under the age of 24, (which is how the UN defines youth). We would make sure that we had a wide range of ages on panels, and we incorporated that perspective into almost all of the panels.

You have talked about collaboration and working as part of a team in both your research and your role in organizing this summit. Could you say a little more about how you see working in a team?

I enjoy teamwork, I love the opportunity to working with my peers and learn from people who are much better at things that I don’t think about as much. In the experimental side of research, I am fascinated talking to experimentalists and understanding better what is physically happening. In my computer I build an ideal model, and everything works the way I tell it to. Experimentalists must be really clever about the way that they are measuring things and setting up their systems which helps me think about things in a new way, and they usually come up with research questions that I wouldn’t have considered on my own. Working in a team, whether it is research or organizing a summit is a great way to learn from others.

I enjoy working in an environment where I can get constructive criticism from others, on things that I don’t know, or things that I could do better. Sometimes in the moment you are like “Oh no, I’m the worst”, but later, it can often be a great opportunity to grow. I think that approaching problems with humility and working with others that you genuinely enjoy working produces much better science.

Sometimes you end up in the weeds with the details of science, and it can feel really hard and really isolated. Having teammates to talk to and just commiserate with can be so valuable and is often something that really energizes me.

All of the people that I work with are so talented that it makes me excited for the future. The passion that they have makes me hopeful because I know amazing, dedicated people are working on these problems.

Speaking of the future, where do you see your research areas leading?

I would hope that in 20 years we will be carbon neutral. Most projections are stating that we need to get there by 2050, but I would hope that it is sooner because 2050 is a hard deadline. I would like to see a much greater focus on biodiversity and ecosystems in engineering and technical solutions. We really need to think a lot about the biological side, and how complex these ecosystems are. What is it we are doing to impact the non-human world and how do we minimize negative impacts? The work I am doing has a direct link into the renewable energy generation and carbon capture pieces of this puzzle, so I am very interested in working with people in policy or natural sciences to get more complete solutions.

Unfortunately, this work is extremely time constrained – we don’t have time to wait. Hence the UN Right Here, Right Now initiative. We must develop, optimize, and deploy these technologies by 2050 on a large scale, and we’re already behind schedule. So at the end of the day, I just want to be involved in developing solutions so that I can say that I tried my hardest to make a better world for future generations.

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Profile: Hussain Almajed

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Profile: Hussain Almajed Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/04/2023 - 00:00

Daniel Morton

Hussain Almajed is a Graduate Student at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and a joint member of the research groups of Dr. Wilson Smith and Dr. Bri-Mathias Hodge. Hussain joined the Steering Committee of the 2022 United Nations Human Rights Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, while also keeping his research projects running, efforts that were recently recognized with the 2023 ECEE Outreach Award. Hussain sat down to tell us more about his experiences.

Where are you from?

I grew up in a small town in Saudi Arabia called Al Qatif, located on the east coast of the country. Al Qatif is famous for its rich soils and abundant palm trees and springs. On the east side of Al Qatif lies the Arabian or Persian Gulf, which offers a really nice corniche walk alongside the gulf. Unfortunately, some parts of the gulf contain quite a lot of pollution, something that was a strong motivation for me to go into climate change-based research.

What did you like to do as a kid?

I was an avid football / soccer defense player, it was one of my main hobbies. My cousins, friends, and I actually established a local football team that went on to play against some official Saudi football clubs! For a second, I was going to pursue this path officially, but I also wanted to get a college degree, so I had to choose between the two. As there were limited opportunities for football players back then in Saudi Arabia, I eventually decided to go to college!

What are your hobbies now?

I really enjoy hiking around Boulder, especially in the Summer and Spring times. Although I have been living in ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ for more than eight years now, I have not skied before and that is something I would like to try and learn in the next couple of years. I still play some soccer, and I am improving my volleyball skills at the moment, albeit rather slowly! I do enjoy being outside, but I would probably say that I enjoy being at home just as much, I like to catch up on new movies and TV shows and play board games with friends and family.

Speak about some of the strong influences in your life?

I feel like everyone who I have interacted with have had something to do with where I am today. My whole family has been an extremely strong influence. In particular, my parents have helped me develop some leadership skills, things like responsibility and accountability. They have also instilled the love of helping others and have raised me to become an empathetic person, a trait that is needed to understand other people’s perspectives. My siblings have had their unique influences too, some of them pushed me toward challenging myself in research, others guided me through invaluable life lessons. The benefit of being the youngest sibling is that you can learn from all of your siblings’ past experiences! In addition to my parents and siblings, my fiancée has been my strongest supporter in the past eight years; pouring me with positivity and confidence, as well as listening to my foolish ideas.

How did you choose this area of research?

During my sophomore year in undergrad, I was interested in pursuing research questions and attempting to answer them using science, but I wasn’t sure what topic to pursue. I initially joined Dr. Sandeep Sharma’s computational research group at the department of chemistry here at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, which exposed me to the different aspects and environments in research. That experience helped me be sure about wanting to go into research and move toward something where I could see some of the changes that I would be working on. I decided to pursue some research that is relevant to renewable energy applications, which led me to move towards electrochemical research in the group of Dr. Adam Holewinski. There, I worked on electro-oxidation of carbon monoxide and methanol, which are chemical reactions used in direct methanol fuel cells. I was able to build my fundamental understanding of electrochemistry and its role within the transition to renewable energy. I liked the experience and decided to join the master’s program in Chemical Engineering also here at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder. I was co-advised by Dr. Charles Musgrave and Dr. Wilson Smith (both RASEI Fellows) on a project that had a combination of quantum mechanics and electrochemistry. I employed computational methods to understand the fundamentals and mechanistic details of electrocatalysts for the electro-reduction of carbon dioxide to CO. The aim being to take this waste greenhouse gas and eventually convert it to a useful and valuable product, such as ethylene, which is used in plastics production.

During my Master’s, my work was focused on the atomic scale, which was really difficult to visualize its direct effect in the energy transition. Although the work was very interesting and fundamental, I found that I have a stronger interest in the bigger scales. I decided to benefit from the unique expertise of both Dr. Wilson Smith and Dr. Bri-Mathias Hodge during my PhD, working on system-level assessments of carbon dioxide removal and electrolysis technologies. My vision is that this work would guide questions and research programs towards relevant problems to realizing a smooth transition from fossil-based energy and fuels to cleaner alternatives.

Tell us a little bit about how you got involved with the Right Here, Right Now Summit.

With getting involved in the systems level research, I understood that in order for me to be effective in this space, I need to develop my leadership skills and look at a whole range of aspects including policymaking, economics, and the rights of indigenous communities. I started building my leadership interest, working through some courses, and mentoring high school and undergraduate students. My advisors knew about my interests and so when this opportunity was announced, they encouraged me to apply. I was both happy and surprised when I heard back from them as I was not expecting that to be involved in the Steering Committee of such a global event!

As part of the Committee, I worked to identify keynote speakers and panelists, providing well-thought opinions about the involvement of people in the summit. A key part of this effort was to organize the summit with respect to the diversity we were seeking to provide. Alongside this, we were looking at what events should support this summit, and how the whole program not only helps and informs the population of Boulder and ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, but the world as a whole.

One of the main pieces I was involved in was suggesting a side research event to be planned for alongside the summit, where graduate students can share their research about climate change and human rights. We had participants from across the different schools and departments, which was fantastic because they could present to attendees from across the globe.

The feedback and guidance we received from the United Nations, and the other stakeholders involved, was that we needed to bring together people from diverse global regions, races, ethnicities, and perspectives. It made us think bigger and I was very excited to learn how this process was deployed at that scale.

Personally, this experience helped shape my thinking about leadership and how complicated it can be. It was great to watch some of the best leaders from the various departments and organizations be involved in this summit, and I was excited to learn about how they navigate these complicated situations.

You have had the opportunity to work with a range of different teams, on a range of different problems. Tell us a little about how you see teamwork.

Teamwork not only produces well-thought ideas and opinions but also offers people with a sense of community that can build their trust and confidence in themselves and in their teammates. I see teamwork as a strong pillar that one can rely on to push themselves further. One of the benefits I have found working on a team, and this may sound strange, is watching others struggle with their work. It has made it easier for me to accept how I struggle with my own work, and actually acts to support me. Often, chatting with co-workers helps me focus on my work and be more productive. My teammates and I usually spend about 30 minutes every day to just chat, whether it is about life or research or anything really. Talking to peers can really increase one’s confidence about their work and can strengthen the personal connection between them, helping build a friendly environment for everyone to shine.

If all goes according to plan, where would you hope your research has an impact in the future?

The transition from fossil-based energy and raw materials is going to take some time. In about 10-20 years, I hope to see some of my work be implemented at a large scale, say a gigaton scale. I also hope to see the shift happening more directly toward converting carbon dioxide from the air or ocean into some valuable consumer products at scale. A lot of this is going to be so dependent on careful development and deployment of emerging technologies as well as on cultural and economical changes. That is why a holistic approach, in which considers a diverse set of experts and stakeholders, similar to the one promoted by RASEI, is needed for this transition to be implemented at the scale and speed needed.

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Profile: Stephanie Weber

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Profile: Stephanie Weber Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/01/2023 - 00:00

Daniel Morton

RASEI Welcomes our newest Fellow, Environmental Economist Stephanie Weber. Stephanie grew up in Chicago. She completed her undergraduate degree in Earth Systems at Stanford University. She attained her Ph.D. from Yale University and joins RASEI after her postdoctoral work focused on fuel undervaluation and policy in heavy-duty vehicles, electric vehicle adoption, and interactions between electrification and other environmental policies. We sat down with Stephanie to find out more about her.

Where are you from?

This question gets increasingly interesting as time goes on! I grew up in Chicago, but now, with my move to ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, I have lived in every continental US time zone, which is cool!

Tell us about your childhood growing up.

I was a city kid growing up. Lots of taking buses from a young age and now I have maybe a surprising enthusiasm for public transportation. Another consequence of being a city kid is that I did learn how to ski on a landfill (or at least manmade) mountain in Wisconsin.

I read a lot of books, so many books that I would reread the same ones over and over again and see how fast I could do it because I just couldn’t get to bookstores or the library fast enough.

Did you know what you wanted to be when you were growing up?

It fluctuated wildly! I went through the phase that every child, especially those who set foot in the Shedd Aquarium (in Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan), goes through, which is that I wanted to be a marine biologist, and then, at some point, Vice President, and then at some point a lawyer, mainly because my parents were lawyers. Eventually, I knew I wanted to do something with energy and energy policy, but it was only as I was nailing down grad school applications that it became Environmental Economist.

What led you to this area of research?

I always have had a deep interest in science, but also in thinking about human decision-making and policy. I took a class in the first quarter of my freshman year in college called Energy Choices for the 21^st Century. It was an overview of all the different technologies and their trade-offs, and I found it super interesting. It made me think about whether I wanted to be a physical scientist or a social scientist in how I could approach these kinds of issues. I spent a summer working in a lab on molecular electronics, on a project that was supposed to be distantly related to solar panels, and after college, I worked at an electricity trading firm, which taught me a lot about electricity infrastructure and how to build models to predict power flow and transmission congestion, and involved more quantitative social science methods.

When I started to look at grad schools I talked to several professors, one of whom told me that going to an econ program would open up more doors for someone at this kind of crossroads of interests. I had a broad area that I was interested in, and economics has given me the toolkit to look at different topics within that area without limiting myself to one single technology or one single methodology, which was really exciting for me.

What would you say to someone considering a similar research path?

People often describe research as an iterative process, where you are identifying an interesting and important question, a methodology that can help you explore it, and existing data or a way of collecting new data to answer the question. In my experience, there is a lot of finding two out of three or finding out that you have to evolve one dimension as you learn about the others: where you have a question and you find that someone has answered it, but maybe not with the best possible methodology, but then the right data doesn’t exist. So, you can end up bouncing between these things in the hope that you can find a true hole in the literature that you can help answer, but also, hopefully, still resembles the thing that made you interested in the first place. I would recommend that folks find a broad area of work that you are really interested in, because you will always end up going down some of these research rabbit holes, and you will hit dead ends, and so making sure that it is something that you are excited about and can be motivated by is super important.

Also finding people who are working on related (or even not that related) projects, with whom you can compare notes and talk broadly about problems, is absolutely necessary for motivation and support.

You have worked as part of a range of interdisciplinary projects, could you say more about what attracts you to work in such teams?

Garry joined NREL in 2000 and has been a RASEI Fellow since the Institute’s inception in 2009. We sit down to find out a little more about Garry, how he came to be part of RASEI and looking forward.

Where are you from?

Essex, in the south of England. I grew up on a market garden and cereal farm that was far away from the middle of nowhere.

Tell us something from your childhood.

Working on the farm and with my family took up a lot of time. Football and family. I took up sailing when I was 17 and spent a lot of time on the rivers Blackwater and Crouch, both of which offer fantastic sailing! I met my wife, Lee, windsurfing in California, so the sport served me very well.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Pilot in the Royal Air Force

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

Spending time with family, sailing, running, watching football. Skiing. I am a telemark skier, which Art Nozik got me into – it is great because everyone looks at you as though you are amazing, even if you are not!

Who have been some strong influences in your life?

George Porter. Art Nozik. My high school teachers. Where I grew up there were very few people who went on to higher education and university. In my class 6 people went to university, which doubled the number of people from that school who went on to higher education (the school opened in 1958). There was not a good structure or support for getting into university and my high school teachers took someone who had few academic aspirations and ignited a curiosity in chemistry and electronics.

How did you choose your area of research?

When I finished my undergraduate, I was fascinated by lasers, and that is what really hooked me. I went to work with Prof. David Phillips at the Royal Institution in London. I got to work on lasers and live in London! It was a great research environment and where I first connected with (Professor Sir) George Porter. He was a fantastic scientist who was endlessly curious. I remember being on a call with him on a Sunday evening where we spent an hour discussing whether a mole of yellow or red photons had more entropy. A Nobel Prize winner talking to me about this! I received a copy of his paper on the thermodynamics through the internal mail the next day.

What would you say to folks considering a similar research path?

Seek quality mentors. Don’t be modest, but don’t be arrogant – be confident. Talk to lots of people in research. Get advice, don’t try and do it all yourself. You need to know what you don’t know, and how to be successful. Learn the basics and make sure that you have a really strong foundation, not just in the sciences. You need to be able to communicate, present, and write effectively.

What is an important lesson you have taken from your work in research?

You need to know your “So what?” and “what is the impact?”. You need to be able to tell people why what you are doing is significant. One of the most important things, whether for putting together proposals, presenting your work, writing a paper, or talking to sponsors, is being able to concisely provide and articulate the conclusion. Give me the why – impress me!

Describe some of your philosophies toward approaching scientific challenges.

Connect with great scientists interested in collaboration. While I was at Imperial collaboration was not a big focus, things were rather siloed. I did get one chance to work on a collaboration with a team at the University of Cambridge, but I was not central, I was more of a satellite player. It was one of the things that was so attractive at NREL – you are integrated and work as part of ‘real’ team. NREL, with folks like Art Nozik, fosters an environment where you can be an intellectual leader, not just an ancillary participant, and this team atmosphere was something I really enjoyed. RASEI brings together the academic and National lab approaches, which is one of the things that makes it an exciting space to operate.

Value the human aspects of research-based teamwork. Being part of a team provides such a great opportunity for learning and discovering new approaches. It also gives you a chance to learn more about people and appreciate the balance and recognition of the different things people bring to projects. I have worked with some extremely talented people who go on to do things outside of research – which is fantastic. Everyone’s path is different, and everyone has different responsibilities and drives. Working as part of close-knit teams has given me a chance to appreciate this.

Tell us a bit about the impacts you see RASEI having in the future.

Institutes provide the opportunity for agility and being able to address large, cross-disciplinary challenges – something that Departments are not always able to do. Departments in the system provide the foundation for the research endeavor that enable Institutes to operate. Institutes exist in this space where folks can come together and interact, be more dynamic than otherwise possible. For RASEI the partnership with NREL really advances this idea.

Institutes act to bridge gaps between Departments, and to fill in gaps that are perhaps not normally covered, and this is where things can be exciting, where new ideas can come about.

I am looking forward to watching RASEI grow and have a reputation that demonstrates how much of a strength the partnership between ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and NREL is. This kind of organizational research collaboration is extremely powerful and needs to be lauded. A partnership like this, that has agility and the ability to pivot, is not only a great place to perform research, but is also going to be essential in how we attack new challenges.

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Profile: Katherine Shulenberger

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Profile: Katherine Shulenberger Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/28/2022 - 00:00

Daniel Morton

Dr. Katherine Shulenberger is a Postdoctoral Scholar, a Physical Chemist, and a member of the Dukovic Research Group. Katherine received her B.A from Wellesley College in 2014 and went on to join the Bawendi group at MIT to carry out her graduate studies. In 2019 Katherine moved west and joined RASEI.

In September 2022 Katherine was selected by ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder as a 2022 Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar, recognizing her outstanding accomplishments and research at the University.

Where are you from?

I grew up in California east of Berkeley with my parents and little sister. They have always been my biggest and best support network through all the twists, turns, and challenges life throws at us. It probably comes as no surprise to those who know me that I was certainly very nerdy growing up. I spent a lot of time on school, taking as many science classes as could fit in my schedule. I also loved to get out and move, participating in a myriad of sports including basketball, horseback riding, and track and field. I played basketball through college and have continued to horseback ride to this day. When I am not in lab you can often find me out at the barn riding or cheering on the incredible community I have found there. Throughout graduate school and my postdoc, getting out to the barn has always been a great excuse to unplug from my work and help my mind reset.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

As far back as I can remember, I have been fascinated by puzzles, games, and learning. While it has been many years since I first started playing games like Mastermind and Risk with my family, I still seek out puzzles and challenges in my life. It is this love of solving and understanding that brought me to chemistry, and specifically physical chemistry. While the puzzles have gotten more complex moving from pieces on a game board to electrons in a nanocrystal, the childlike glee I get from puzzling out what is happening in my cuvette during an experiment is the same.

How did you choose your area of research?

I like to say that everyone got into quantum dot research, at least in part, for the rainbows; I am certainly no exception. From day one I was fascinated by the incredible tunability of semiconductor nanocrystals, and immediately wanted to understand. I’ve also always aspired to dig in to work that was not only interesting but held promise to help society in some way down the line. The nanocrystal world has provided just that with interesting scientific questions to address and long-term applications in display, lighting, photovoltaic, and photocatalytic fields. Some of these arenas already have viable commercial products, emphasizing the idea that the fundamental photophysics research we do can have a human impact. My current work and interests in the Dukovic Group center around understanding excited state processes in semiconductor nanocrystals that have implications for photocatalytic and photovoltaic applications. On the photocatalytic side, I discovered a process through which CdS nanocrystals accumulate excess charges under illumination. These charges persist for minutes to hours, an eternity on the scale of excited state dynamics. I am also continuing my interest in understanding multiply excited states which began during my graduate work to extract and interpret exciton and biexciton transient absorption spectra. This project has implications for photovoltaic applications where the generation of multexcitons could be a mechanism to reduce thermalization losses in devices. Projects such as these make it such a joy to work with the RASEI community. Not only is there an abundance of fascinating research and breadth of expertise, but the big picture aim is to find solutions to making a more sustainable energy future. Such a lofty and worthy goal helps motivate me in moments when the work can get challenging or frustrating.

For folks considering research as a career, what advice would you give?

My biggest piece of advice is the same that I tell incoming graduate students when they set out to pick a research group: “the science is important, but what matters most are the people you will work with.” The greatest bonus of working in the nanocrystal field I did not know of or even expect when I started, are the incredible people. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to work with phenomenal mentors like Professor Gordana Dukovic. In my labmates, both during graduate school and my postdoc, I have found not just amazing colleagues, but also amazing friends. One of my absolute favorite parts of my job is attending conferences and getting to talk with the rest of the community, share our work, and meet the people behind the scientific results and publications. I love the exciting atmosphere and the ideas and collaborations that blossom in these settings. Perhaps I have not changed so much from the little nerd excited to solve puzzles with her parents after all.

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