Dr. James Harris Receives NSF CAREER Award
Prof. James “Jamie” Harris recently received the CAREER award, titled “CAREER: Design of Bifunctional Zeolite Catalysts for Ethanol Upgrading to Sustainable Aviation Fuel,” from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support his innovative research and teaching. Jamie joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2019. Since then, he has led several key projects focused on using spectroscopic characterization and chemical kinetics to understand the performance of materials as heterogeneous catalysis. His research has developed improved understanding into the potential of zeolite-support molecular complexes as model catalysts in oxidation reactions, in opportunities for selective oxidative coupling over supported metal nanoparticles, and in understanding catalysts useful for conversion of ethanol to chemicals. In recognition of these efforts, Jamie was awarded the Oak Ridge Afilliated Universities Ralph E. Powe Award in 2021, the ACS Petroleum Research Foundation’s Doctoral New Investigator Award in 2022, and was named a University of Alabama Hewson Engineering Faculty Fellow in 2024.
The NSF CAREER award will provide Jamie with funding as he prepares to expand his research portfolio in fundamental studies of zeolite catalysts. He will develop spectroscopic methods to characterize materials relevant to the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and his research group will be using fundamental kinetic studies to connect material structure to function. Jamie’s new project will advance our understanding by developing understanding of emerging rare-earth-element containing zeolite materials, before optimizing their properties for conversion of ethanol to the chemical precursors to SAF. By pinpointing relevant catalyst structural and chemical properties, Jamie’s work will help realize more efficient catalysts.
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering is extraordinarily proud of Jamie’s achievements. His innovative application of catalysis science methods in new areas has promoted investigation into several new applications and research directions. We are excited to see what he will accomplish as he enters the next progression of his career. Congrats, Jamie!