RSC Applied Interfaces Blog

Meet our Advisory Board members who work in environmental remediation

In February, we introduced our inaugural Advisory Board for RSC Applied Interfaces. Each month, we will be shining a spotlight on some of our new Advisory Board members and highlighting their current research interests.

This week we are delighted to introduce Vicki H. Grassian, Paolo Fornasiero and Carlos F. O. Graeff as members of our inaugural Advisory Board.

Vicki H. Grassian is a Distinguished Professor and holds the Distinguished Chair in Physical Chemistry at the University of California San Diego. Professor Grassian’s research focuses on the chemistry of environmental interfaces. She has received many awards and honors for her research on the chemistry and impacts of environmental interfaces including atmospheric aerosols, engineered and geochemical nanomaterials and indoor surfaces. Most recently, she received the 2021 American Chemical Society Award in Surface Chemistry, the American Chemical Society Geochemistry Medal and the Sustainable Nanotechnology Award. She is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“I am excited to be part of the launch of this new journal RSC Applied Interfaces as an advisory board member” – Vicki H. Grassian

Paolo Fornasiero is Full Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Trieste. His scientific interests are in the field of inorganic chemistry, with attention to the design and development of multi-functional nano-systems and their advanced applications in energy related processes and environmental heterogeneous catalysis. Paolo Fornasiero has published more than 300 research articles, 19 book chapters, and holds 4 patents. Since 2022, he has been a member of the Academia Europaea and has been a member of the European Academy of Sciences since 2021. He has received various awards including the 2005 Nasini Medal, the 2013 Chiusoli Medal and the Malatesta award from the Italian Chemical Society. He also received the 2016 Heinz Heinemann Award from the International Association of Catalysis Societies.

Carlos F. O. Graeff received his Ph.D. in Physics from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in 1994. After a post‐doctorate at TU München as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation stipendiary, he joined the University of São Paulo (USP), Campus Ribeirao Preto, as Assistant (1996-1999) and Associate Professor (1999‐2006). In 2006 he joined the State University of São Paulo (UNESP) as Full Professor. His field of interest is materials science, more specifically electronic devices (solar cells, thin-film transistors, etc.), biomaterials/bioelectronics and electronic magnetic resonance. He has a strong interest in nurturing scientific talent and has supervised more than 50 Masters and Ph.D. students as well as postdocs. He has published more than 200 research articles and holds several patents.

Please join us in welcoming our new Advisory Board members to the journal community!

Meet our Advisory Board members who work in biomedical coatings, adhesives and devices

In February, we introduced our inaugural Advisory Board for RSC Applied Interfaces. Each month, we will be shining a spotlight on some of our new Advisory Board members and highlighting their current research interests.

This week we are delighted to introduce Teri W. Odom and Fiorenzo Vetrone as members of our inaugural Advisory Board.

Teri W. Odom is a Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Chemistry Department at Northwestern University. She is an expert in designing structured nanoscale materials that exhibit extraordinary size and shape-dependent optical and physical properties. Odom has pioneered a suite of multi-scale nanofabrication tools that have resulted in plasmon-based nanoscale lasers that exhibit tunable colour, flat optics that can manipulate light at the nanoscale, and hierarchical substrates that show controlled wetting and super-hydrophobicity. She has also invented a class of biological nanoconstructs that are facilitating unique insight into nanoparticle-cell interactions and that show superior imaging and therapeutic properties because of their gold nanostar shape.

Fiorenzo Vetrone is a Professor at Université du Québec, Canada. Professor Vetrone’s research interests focus on luminescent nanoparticles and their integration into multifunctional nanoplatforms used by biological systems and nanomedicine. His research team focuses its work on nanoparticles doped with rare earths (lanthanides) and the exploitation of their optical properties (upconversion and near-infrared emission) for the simultaneous detection and treatment of diseases such as cancer. More particularly, he is studying the possibility of exploiting the luminescent properties of nanoparticles to trigger other modalities through photosensitivity, with applications in thermal capture and nanothermometry, upscaling and multiphoton and near-infrared bioimaging, controlled release of drugs, photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy, biosensing.

Please join us in welcoming our new Advisory Board members to the journal community!

Meet our Advisory Board members who work in energy storage, energy conversion and electrochemistry ‌ ‌

In February, we introduced our inaugural Advisory Board for RSC Applied Interfaces. Each month, we will be shining a spotlight on some of our new Advisory Board members and highlighting their current research interests.

This week we are delighted to introduce Sanjay Mathur, Zhongwei Chen, Karim Zaghib and Lianzhou Wang as members of our inaugural Advisory Board.

Sanjay Mathur is a Chair Professor and Director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne, Germany. His research interests focus on the application of nanomaterials and advanced ceramic coatings for energy technologies. He holds 11 patents, has co-authored over 500 original research publications and has edited several books. He was elected Fellow of the European Academy of Science in 2020 and as Foreign Fellow of National Academy of Science, India in 2021. He was awarded the Woody White Award of the Materials Research Society (MRS) in 2021 and had received the Medal of the Chemical Research Society of India (2022). He is the current President of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS, 2022-23) USA.

“I am glad to be on the Advisory Board of RSC Applied Interfaces because surfaces and interfaces are most fascinating aspects of materials science; they manifest a unique symbiosis – the art of living together!” – Sanjay Mathur

Zhongwei Chen is a Professor in Advanced Materials for Clean Energy at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His research interests are in the development of advanced energy materials and electrodes for fuel cells, metal-air batteries, and lithium-ion batteries. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Ontario Early Researcher Award, an NSERC Discovery Supplement Award, and the Distinguished Performance and Research Award. In 2018 and 2019, Dr Chen was listed as a Global Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate Analytics. He was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2019.

Karim Zaghib is a Professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at Concordia University, Canada. He specialises in electrochemistry, rechargeable batteries (lithium-ion and solid-state), carbon science, energy transition and transportation electrification. Since 2022, he has been director of the Collaborative Center on Energy and its Transition (C2ET). Between 2020 and 2021, he was a practicing professor at McGill University and a strategic advisor to the management committee of Investissement Québec, where he was one of the architects of the Quebec strategy for the battery industry development. In 2019, he was awarded the Prix Lionel-Boulet by the Government of Quebec.

Lianzhou Wang is Professor at The University of Queensland, Australia. He is Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Laureate Fellow in the School of Chemical Engineering, Director of the Nanomaterials Centre (Nanomac), and Senior Group Leader of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN). Prof. Wang’s research focuses on the synthesis, characterisation and application of semiconductor nanomaterials for use in renewable energy conversion/storage systems including photocatalytsts for solar hydrogen and valuable chemical production, rechargeable batteries and low-cost solar cells.

Please join us in welcoming our new Advisory Board members to the journal community!

Meet some of our Advisory Board members who work in protective coatings

In February, we introduced our inaugural Advisory Board for RSC Applied Interfaces. Each month, we will be shining a spotlight on some of our new Advisory Board members and highlighting their current research interests.

This week we are delighted to introduce Viola Birss and Yu Fang as members of our inaugural Advisory Board.

Viola Birss is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Calgary, Canada. Her research focuses on better understanding fuel cell reaction mechanisms, as well as on improving the performance and lifetime of low temperature PEM fuel cells through the development of paradigm-shifting nanoporous carbon scaffold materials, for use as both catalyst and microporous layers. Professor Birss is also engaged in the development of core@shell nanoparticles, protective coatings and other novel strategies to combat the corrosion of metals, electrochemical biosensors, and a range of structurally ordered nanomaterials for a variety of clean energy/environment applications.

Yu Fang is a Professor of Physical Chemistry and Polymer Science at the Key Laboratory of Applied Surface and Colloid Chemistry (CAS) and is a Professor at Shaanxi Normal University, China. His research interests include the development of film-based fluorescent sensors via innovative design of sensing fluorophores and modulation of their excited-state processes. Professor Fang’s research also focuses on development of smart molecular materials of diversified internal structures with emphases in physical chemistry at the surfaces, interfaces and adlayers of the relevant systems.

Please join us in welcoming our new Advisory Board members to the journal community!