Characterizing the Path to Net Zero

Registration is closed.

The event will be held at UBC Chemical and Biological Building, Room 202.

​A research seminar series featuring four speakers from UBC, SFU, McMaster, and University of Victoria who work in diverse clean energy fields connected by shared themes in clean energy characterization. The speakers will explore how different characterization approaches and techniques support understanding and innovation across the clean energy disciplines.

​This event is supported by UBC Net0MM-CREATE, Characterization@UBC cluster, and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Agenda

Talk Abstracts:

Speaker Bios:

Dr. Kiana Amini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Engineering at the University of British Columbia. She earned her BSc in Chemical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology and her MSc and PhD from the University of Waterloo, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University focused on electrochemical energy storage and carbon capture. Dr. Amini’s lab leverages electrochemistry to develop devices that support the transition to a cleaner energy future. Her group advances aqueous electrochemical flow cells for energy storage, carbon capture, and lithium extraction. The scope of her research spans material and molecular design, system and device development, and performance characterization, enabling connections between fundamental electrochemical behavior and device-level operation. 

Dr. Drew Higgins is an Associate Professor and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University, where their research focuses on sustainable electrochemical energy technology development. Particularly, their team focuses on applications including electrochemical CO₂ conversion, rechargeable zinc-ion batteries, supercapacitors, water electrolyzers and biomass valorization processes. Their research covers the synthesis of new nanostructured electrode materials and their integration into electrochemical technologies, as well as developing advanced understanding of material performance through the development and implementation of in situ characterization techniques. Previously Drew completed their PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo in 2015, with their thesis involving the synthesis, characterization, and device integration of nanostructured oxygen reduction catalysts for low temperature fuel cells. During this time, they spent approximately one year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory working. In 2015, Drew started a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University in the Department of Chemical Engineering and in 2017 was promoted to an Associate Staff Scientist at Stanford University / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where they oversaw research activities focusing on discovering and understanding new electrocatalyst compositions and structures for a variety of important electrochemical reactions, including water oxidation, CO₂ reduction, oxygen reduction and methane activation. More details are available at: https://www.higginslab.com/.    

Dr. Sami Khan is an Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2020 and undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto. In Canada, Dr. Khan leads the Engineered Interfaces for Sustainable Energy (EISEn) research group, which aims to improve the performance and longevity of sustainable energy systems. He has raised over $1.2M Canadian dollars in research funding for his group, filed 4 patents, and supervised the research of 3 PhD students, 7 Masters students and 12 undergraduate students. He is a chemical engineer by training, and has previously worked in the Canadian mining industry, and also served as a Science and Technology Advisor to the Chief Scientist of Canada. For his contributions, he has received the Action Canada Award from the Government of Canada and the Marcel Pourbaix Corrosion Award.

Dr. Jason Keonhag Lee serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Victoria. His research focuses on advancing clean hydrogen production technologies through the means of electrochemical energy conversion, collaborating closely with Accelerating Community Energy Transformations (ACET) and Institute for Integrated Energy Systems (IESVic). He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto and obtained his M.A.Sc. and B.Eng. from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Victoria. Dr. Lee worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he contributed to the development of water electrolyzers.