Christian Reece
Principal Investigator

Christian Reece received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at the University of Bath, where he worked on computational studies on semiconductor materials. He received his PhD from Cardiff University, and his doctoral work was focused on using kinetic analysis to better understand and design heterogeneous catalysts by using a number of experimental and theoretical techniques. He then went on to postdoc at Harvard University with Prof. Robert J. Madix, focusing on utilising transient pulse techniques and kinetic modelling to rationalise catalytic behaviour. He joined the Rowland Fellows program in July 2019 with the goal to design transient experiments in order to rationalise and predict catalytic behaviour.

Group Members

Christopher O’Connor
Postdoctoral Fellow

Chris O'Connor received his Chemistry B.S. at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his PhD from Harvard University where he investigated the surface chemistry and dynamic material rearrangement of bimetallic alloy surfaces from near-ambient pressure to UHV conditions in the laboratory of Prof. Cynthia Friend. He performed postdoctoral research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory under the guidance of Dr. Greg Kimmel and Dr. Zdenek Dohnalek, where he investigated the structure of water-metal oxide interfaces using model single-crystal surfaces and investigated the surface chemistry of oxide single-crystal surfaces and nanoparticle materials to address the "materials gap" in heterogeneous catalysis. Chris will be investigating the kinetics of catalyst materials using a transient flow reactor.

Audrey Dannar received her B.A. in chemistry from Reed College in Portland, OR. She will receive her Ph.D from Tufts University in July 2024, where she investigated Single-Atom Alloy model catalyst stability and oxidation using variable temperature scanning tunneling microscopy in the laboratory of Prof. E. Charles H. Sykes. She will be conducting pulse experiments to elucidate fundamental processes behind Fe-catalyzed carbon nanotube formation.

Samantha Le received their B.S in Chemistry from Tufts University, who joined the group through the Rowland Institute Summer Student program in their senior year. They will be working on a combining experiments in the miniTAP reactor with kinetic modelling to identify active sites over Pt catalysts.

Hadley Nunn is in her third year at Tufts University working towards a B.S in Chemistry and a minor in math. She will be working on combining transient flow experiments with in situ DRIFTS to characterise catalytic materials..

Group Photos

August 29th 2024

June 23rd 2023

August 9th 2022

May 28th 2022