Nicole is a second-year PhD student and ARCS scholar in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oregon. She works in Shannon Boettcher's lab, an electrochemistry laboratory that explores developing science and technology surrounding green hydrogen. Nicole is focusing on understanding how certain materials catalyze the chemical reactions involved in the production of hydrogen from water. 

Most recently, she has been working on a series of experiments that took her to the synchrotron radiation source in Berlin, Germany. There, with help from collaborators at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Nicole and her colleague, Liam Twight (also a PhD student in the Boettcher lab), carried out experiments involving high-energy X-rays to uncover important structural information about their materials under operation. Results from these experiments will provide critical details needed to distinguish the identity of catalyst active sites and inform future materials engineering.  

Nicole’s scholar award is funded by the members of our Oregon Chapter.