Dr. Veronica Augustyn, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University, has been selected to receive funding as part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Early Career Research Program. Her research focuses on the electrochemistry of materials for the development of clean-energy technologies.
Augustyn is one of 73 scientists in the United States to receive the funding as part of this program, which will provide about $150,000 per year to cover summer salary and research expenses for five years. The program is in its 10th year and funds scientists whose research topics fall within one of the DOE’s Office of Science’s six major program offices: Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Basic Energy Sciences, Biological and Environmental Research, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics. Augustyn’s research project was selected by the DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
Her project, “Probing Electrochemical Reactivity Under Nanoconfinement Using Molecularly Pillared Two Dimensional Materials,” aims to understand how confining liquid phase reactants within the layers of a two-dimensional material will influence electrochemical reactions. The hypothesis is that there will be an optimum interlayer spacing of layered materials to enable electrochemical reactivity in the interlayer. The findings from this research will be applicable to fundamental and applied energy research.
Earlier this year, Augustyn was awarded a 2019 Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, and in 2016, she received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation.
Augustyn joined the faculty at NC State in 2015. She earned her B.S. degree from the University of Arizona and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, all in materials science and engineering.