User:Swboettcher/sandbox

Shannon Wachter Boettcher is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oregon. His research is at the intersection of materials science and electrochemistry, with a focus on fundamental aspects of energy conversion and storage. He has been named a DuPont Young Professor, a Cottrell Scholar, a Sloan Fellow, and a Camille-Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. He is a ISI highly cited researcher (top 0.1% over past decade). In 2019, he founded the Oregon Center for Electrochemistry and in 2020 launched the nation’s first targeted graduate program in electrochemical technology. In 2021 he was named a Blavatnik National Award Finalist.

Prof. Boettcher has broad expertise in fundamental electrochemistry and inorganic materials science. He is a leader in the development and understanding of mixed-metal (oxy)hydroxide water oxidation catalysts in alkaline medium. When properly incorporated with Fe-based active sites these materials are the fastest-known water oxidation catalysts. Boettcher invented new methods for the direct interrogation of electrocatalyst/semiconductor interfaces in operating photoelectrodes, both at the macroscopic and nanoscale using potential-sensing electrochemical AFM. This work revealed new “adaptive” junction physics that his team explained with theory and simulation. His work has further spanned the development of low-cost vapor-transport growth of high-performance III-V semiconductors, redox-enhanced electrochemical capacitors, and functional metal-oxide thin films. His team has recently launched a systematic study of water-dissociation kinetics, discovered underlying trends, and used this foundational information to improve the performance of bipolar membranes 10-fold over the state of the art.

Boettcher performed his undergraduate work at the University of Oregon performing research with Prof. Mark Lonergan on electronically conductive ionomers and conjugated-polymer/semiconductor interfaces. His PhD work (2003-2008) in inorganic materials chemistry was at the University of California, Santa Barbara working with Prof. Galen Stucky where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a UC Chancellors Fellow. His work spanned the synthesis and study of porous transition metal oxides, photoelectrochemistry, and detailed studies of nanoparticle film electrochemistry and nanoparticle/semiconductor interfaces. Boettcher completed postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology as a Kavli Nanoscience Institute Prize Postdoctoral Fellow working with Prof. Nathan Lewis (Chemistry) and Prof. Harry Atwater (Applied Physics) studying three-dimensional semiconductor architectures for solar photoelectrochemical and photovoltaic applications. He started as a Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon in 2010.