2024-2025 Kavli Heising-Simons Junior Fellow
Faculty Advisor: Professor Peidong Yang
Maria Fonseca Guzman is currently a third year Ph.D. candidate in chemistry in Prof. Peidong Yang’s group. Before attending UC Berkeley, Maria received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. In her spare time, Maria enjoys reading and hiking.
Maria’s research has focused on employing vibrational spectroscopy to understand structural changes within nanocatalyst systems to probe what aspects of the local environment, i.e. dissociation of surface ligands, organization of counterion species, and local electric field, can trigger enhancements in CO2 conversion. As a Kavli fellow, Maria aims to further her research in understanding active site formation from materials which, under reaction conditions, manifest some “ideal” properties, such as undercoordination or local polarization, which can boost their performance. In the near term, Maria is focusing on developing an effective system which can yield conversion towards valuable oxygenate products from CO2 reduction. To develop new understanding of the effects which favor one reaction product over another, Maria will work to expand the understanding of catalyst structure and dynamics using in situ X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy. Further, Maria hopes to marry this insight with the speciation of reaction intermediates gathered from in situ surface-enhanced electrochemical Raman spectroscopy. With this information, we are aiming to further codify crucial steps in active site formation, eventually applying this knowledge towards lowering the required overpotential (energy input) for triggering limiting reaction steps which control CO2 reduction pathways.