Scientific Program

Rudolph A. Marcus, John G. Kirkwood and Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, was born in Montreal, Canada in 1923. After receiving a B.Sc. (1943) and Ph.D. (1946) from McGill University (experiments on reaction rates in liquids), and post-doctoral research at the N.R.C. of Canada (experiments on rates in gases) and the University of North Carolina (reaction rate theory), he joined the faculty of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (1951-64), the University of Illinois (1964-78), and Caltech (1978- ).

His research includes the "Marcus theory" of electron transfer processes, the RRKM theory of unimolecular reactions, and more recent theories in fields that include anomalous isotope effects in stratospheric ozone, catalysis of ‘on water’ organic reactions, in emulsions and single molecule behavior of biological motors and of semiconductor nanoparticles. A trademark of his research has been a strong interaction between theory and experiment.

Marcus received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1985, the U.S. National Medal of Science in 1989, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992.

Gerardine (Gerri) Botte is a Professor and Whitacre Endowed Chair in Sustainable Energy at Texas Tech University (TTU) and the Founding Director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production, CASFER. She is also currently leading a new initiative at TTU for sustainability and circular economies, under a recently established Institute at TTU. She served as the Whitacre Department Chair in Chemical Engineering at TTU for three years before becoming CASFER Director. In her tenure as Department Chair, she was instrumental in the implementation of curricula changes and the significant growth in research and restrictive research expenditures in the department. Gerri has over 25 years of experience in the development of electrochemical processes as they related to the intersection of energy, water, and food sustainability. She is a visionary and a recognized leader in electrochemical science and technology. She has served in leadership roles for both the International Society of Electrochemistry and the Electrochemical Society and is currently the President-Elect of the Electrochemical Society. In 2014, she was named a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society for her contributions and innovation in electrochemical processes and engineering. She became a Chapter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2012. Dr. Botte has 211 publications including peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and 62 granted patents. Dr. Botte and members of her research group are working on the foundation of applying electrochemical engineering principles for advanced and sustainable manufacturing, process intensification, food/energy/water sustainability, and nanomaterials with expertise in electro-synthesis, batteries, electrolyzers, sensors, fuel cells, mathematical modeling, and electro-catalysis. Dr. Botte is also an entrepreneur, she has been involved in the commercialization of technologies, has founded and co-founded companies, and serves as a member of the board of directors in several companies. She received her Ph.D. in 2000 (under the direction of Dr. Ralph E. White) and M.E. in 1998, both in Chemical Engineering, from the University of South Carolina. Prior to graduate school, Dr. Botte worked as a process engineer in a petrochemical plant; she was involved in the production of fertilizers and polymers. Dr. Botte received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Universidad de Carabobo (Venezuela) in 1994. She can be reached at Gerri.Botte@ttu.edu

Kisuk Kang is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU), a director of the Center for Advanced Rechargeable Batteries at SNU, and a member of The National Academy of Engineering of Korea. He obtained his Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US (2006), with a thesis titled ‘Designing New Electrode Materials for Energy Devices by Integrating Ab Initio Computations with Experiments’. He was a professor at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) until 2011 and moved to SNU. Since 2013, he has been a tenured professor at SNU. His research lab at SNU focuses on developing new materials for lithium-ion batteries, post-Li battery chemistries such as Na, Mg batteries, all-solid-state batteries, and metal-air batteries using combined experiments and ab initio calculations. Including three articles published in Science, his works have been published in more than 350 papers and cited more than 42,400 times (H-index 105 as of 2023, March) for the last 15 years. He holds more than 50 patents pending/issued in this field. He was selected as a Highly Cited Researcher in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 from Clarivate Analytics. He was a recipient of several awards such as the Energy and Environmental Science Lectureship Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry, United Kingdom (2012), the Science Patriots Award from the Ministry of Science, Korea (2017), Scientist of the Month from Ministry of Science, Korea (2017), and was selected as 100 leaders in Technology by National Academy of Engineering of Korea (2017). He is now a director of the Center for carborganic energy materials and a director of the Center of Samsung SDI-SNU rechargeable batteries. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of Materials Research Society (USA) and is currently serving as an associate/scientific editor of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Materials Horizons and Materials Advances in Royal Society of Chemistry, and a reviewing editor of Science (AAAS).