Joaquin Resasco wins DOE Early Career Award

January 2026

Assistant Professor Joaquin Resasco has been selected to receive the prestigious Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Award. 

Happy to ring in the holidays with a new paper out today in JACS

December 2025

Electrochemical measurements, impedance spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations all point to the same conclusion: interfacial cation density is a key variable governing electrocatalytic kinetics. Hope you enjoy the paper.

Happy holidays from the lab members

December 2025

We are having holiday potluck and also board games at Joaquin’s place. Delicious food, good vibe, and cute dog!!!

Universal model of cation effect in electrocatalysis

November 2025

Almost ten years ago, Joaquin started thinking about a seemingly simple question: why does the choice of cation in an electrolyte change measured rates of electrocatalytic reactions? This perspective summarizes what he has learned since then.

Shashwati defends her PhD

November 2025

Congratulations to Dr. Shashwati da Cunha for successfully defending her thesis! It was such a pleasure to work with Shashwati over the past few years and I am so proud of all that she has accomplished. We will miss her, but know she's going to go out and change the world!

AIChE Annual Meeting

November 2025

Joaquin Resasco gives panel on careers in catalysis, gives talk for Pioneers of Catalysis & Reaction Engineering

Shashwati presented in Graduate Student Success Celebration event

November 2025

Presenters delivered 20 minute presentations showcasing their research. Congratulations to all participants for their outstanding presentations!

New students joining the group

October 2025

Welcome Raul, Cecelia, Meng-Hsiu, and Debanjan joining the group! We are excited to have them all and also Boba outing!

Shashwati’s techno-economic assessment is now available

October 2025

Are you interested in techno-economics of electrochemical CO2 conversion? Then take a look at new work from our group in Chem Catalysis by Cell Press. Shashwati has also put together a CO2R costing dashboard, if you want to do some economic analysis yourself. Check it out!

Hats off to Jay Bender for leading this work

October 2025

We use a combination of kinetic and computational studies to understand why some catalysts show very different activity for the oxygen reduction reaction in acid and base, while others are insensitive to pH. Check out our latest paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society!

Shashwati secured 2nd place in CISTAR Biannual Meeting Poster Pitch

September 2025

Congratulations to 2025 CISTAR Biannual Meeting Poster Pitch winners!
This competition challenges students to share their research with an engaging delivery in only 90 seconds to industry and faculty members.

Jay defends his PhD

July 2025

Joaquin’s first Ph.D. student successfully defended his dissertation today! Congratulations to Dr. Jay Bender! It has been wonderful to watch Jay develop as a scientist over the last 5 years. He has a bright future ahead!

Raul’s work is now online in Energy & Environmental Science!

June 2025

Interested in how variable operation of alkaline electrolyzers affects electrocatalysts? This work highlights the critical role of realistic stress testing for durable energy technologies.

Daniel Resasco’s New ACS Catalysis Account

April 2025

This Account highlights Daniel Resasco’s broad impact on heterogeneous catalysis, from fundamental kinetic and mechanistic insights to practical advances in biomass upgrading, nanomaterials, and interfacial catalysis. Check this out!

Collaborative paper published in ACS Energy Letters

April 2025

Jay and Shashwati collaborated with multiple chemical engineering groups at UT Austin and Stanford to develop a new method for measuring interfacial pH in real time during reaction.

Shashwati’s panel at Energy Week

April 2025

Shashwati was a panelist at UT Energy Week 2025, discussing “The Only Constant is Change: Students’ Perspectives on Energy’s Future” with journalist Andy Uhler and ChemE PhD student Pranav Thacker.

Jiwon advances to candidacy

January 2025

Jiwon passed her qualifying exam and is now a PhD Candidate!

Jon-Marc’s Nature Catalysis paper

January 2025

Jon-Marc’s paper on cation effects in non-aqueous CO2 reduction is out in Nature Catalysis. Thank you to the editors for highlighting it in a News and Views article!

Editors’ Choice for Jay, Angel and Alyssa’s paper

September 2024

Jay’s new paper on cation effects for the oxygen reduction reaction is out in ACS Energy Letters! Our undergrads, Angel and Alyssa, are co-authors. We’re honored to be selected as an ACS Editors’ Choice and featured in a Chem Catalysis highlight!

Chemical Reviews paper

July 2024

Joaquin’s review on new computational methods for treating electrocatalytic interfaces is out! This collaboration was led by Prof. Yuanyue Liu at UT.

Harrison wins TA of the Year

May 2024

Harrison was awarded TA of the Year for his teaching in the graduate kinetics and undergraduate process design courses. Congratulations Harrison!

Southwest Catalysis Society presentations

April 2024

Joaquin gave a talk and students presented posters at the 2024 Southwest Catalysis Society meeting. Jon-Marc won a poster award!

Chevron fellowships for three students

May 2024

Jay, Harrison and Shashwati were awarded Chevron Energy Graduate Fellowships for outstanding innovation in current and future energy systems. Shashwati also won a University Graduate Continuing Fellowship for major accomplishments in the UT Graduate School.

Department Celebration Talks

February 2024

Jay and Shashwati were invited to present our work at our department’s Student Celebration and Recruitment Welcome.

Our newest PhD Candidates

February 2024

Congratulations to Harrison and Akshat for advancing to PhD Candidacy.

Women in Catalysis talk

November 2023

Shashwati was chosen to give a talk at the 2023 Women in Catalysis and Synthetic Chemistry Symposium. She presented on Integrating Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction into Renewable Energy Systems.

Seminar at Texas State by Jay

November 2023

Jay was invited to give a department seminar at Texas State University. He discussed How Electrolyte Composition Influences Electrocatalytic Water Splitting Activity in this seminar through the NSF MRSEC research center.

AIChE, SHPE awards for Joaquin

October 2023

Joaquin won the AIChE 35 Under 35 Award, honoring chemical engineers under 35 for contributions to the field. He also won the Young Investigator Award from the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers recognizing outstanding professionals for their dedication, commitment, and efforts to advance Hispanics in STEM careers.

Shashwati’s CISTAR poster

September 2023

Shashwati won 3rd place for Outstanding Poster, as well as 3rd place for Outstanding Poster Pitch at the 2023 Biannual Meeting for the CISTAR NSF Engineering Research Center.

Nature Communications paper

September 2023

Our latest paper in Nature Communications shows that Maximizing single-pass conversion does not result in practical readiness for CO2 reduction electrolyzers. It has been featured in the Editors’ Highlights for Catalysis, highlighting recent cutting-edge research across the field.

Jay awarded TA of the Year

August 2023

Congratulations to Jay for being awarded Teaching Assistant of the Year in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering! Jay taught Reaction Kinetics.

ChemRxiv preprint

July 2023

Our new work on single-pass conversion as a metric for CO2 electrolyzers is now available as a preprint on ChemRxiv.

NAM28 Conference Presentations

June 2023

Jay gave a talk on understanding cation effects for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Joel, Jon-Marc, and Shashwati presented posters on our research in CO2 reduction.

Jon-Marc at ExxonMobil R&D

May - August 2023

Jon-Marc is interning this summer at ExxonMobil’s Research and Engineering (EMRE) Technology Center in New Jersey working in the Emerging Energy Sciences Division!

Southwest Catalysis Society Symposium Presentation

April 2023

Shashwati presented a poster on her work on mildly acidic electrolytes for CO2 reduction in membrane electrode assemblies.

Spring 2023 updates

Spring 2023

Congratulations to Joel, Jon-Marc and Shashwati on becoming PhD candidates, and to Sean on graduating with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering!

UT Energy Week presentation

April 2023

Akshat gave a talk and a poster on metal oxides for green hydrogen production at UT Energy Week 2023.

Tram is a Senior Scientist!

March 2023

Tram started as Senior Scientist at Kraton Corporation in Houston.

ACS Energy Letters paper

December 2022

Our work on Understanding Cation Effects for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction was published in ACS Energy Letters!

AIChE Conference presentation

November 2022

Jay gave a talk at the AIChE conference about the influence of alkali metal cations on the hydrogen evolution reaction.