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NEWS | Archive
June 10, 2026
Congratulations to Matt on his latest collaborative publication with UW-Madison and NLR in Nature titled "Lignin to adipic acid in a high-yield chemical and biological redox process."
June 2, 2026
The group is joined by our newest postdoc, Javier Chavarrío. Welcome!
May 27, 2026
Congrats to the group's newest doctor, Anna Brenner! And farewell to Juliana Lu-Yang. We wish the both of you all the best in your future endeavours!
May 22, 2026
Congrats to Bowei on his latest publication in Green Chem.! In collaboration with colleagues from University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and Colorado State University, this paper demonstrates a novel process to access recyclable vinyl polymers from triacetic acid lactone with excellent yield.
April 18, 2026
Congrats to Xiao on his latest publication in ACS Energy Letters! In collaboration with the Shao-Horn group, this letter demonstrates the role of free radicals in electrochemical defluorination of PFAS.
March 30, 2026
Our latest work done in collaboration with colleagues from UWM, MIT, and NLR on Nylon-6 alcoholysis has been published in Chem. Congrats to Andy, Xiao, Matthew, Anna, and Griffin for their contributions!
March 25, 2026
Excited to share our latest paper published in ACS Catalysis in collaboration with the Surendranath group! Congrats to Thejas for their contributions!
March 23, 2026
We are rounding off March with two new publications in Joule and the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation in collaboration with the National Lab of the Rockies and the Kulik group. Congratulations to Julie, Guido, Anna, Griffin, and Melissa for their contributions!
February 17, 2026
Excited to share our latest paper published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering in collaboration with the National Lab of the Rockies!
February 2, 2026
We're starting February off strong with a publication in Nature Computational Science done in collaboration with our colleagues in the Olivetti, Gomez-Bombarelli, and Moliner groups. Congrats to Soon for his contributions!
January 23, 2026
Our group is on a roll in January with another publication in ACS Catalysis. Congratulations to Karl for his contributions!
January 15, 2026
Congratulations to Blake, John, and Bhavish for their most recent publication in ACS Catalysis!
January 6, 2026
The group is joined by two new first year PhD students, Hannah Even and Clemen Goh. Welcome!
January 5, 2026
We're kicking off the new year with a collaborative publication in JACS, where we demonstrate the facilitation of photochemical fluoroalkylation reactions with MOFs. Congratulations to Husain for his contributions to this work!
December 22, 2025
We're rounding out the year with our most recent publication in JACS, where we demonstrate that contact between polarizable catalysts and inert conductive solids can alter interfacial electric fields on Brønsted acid catalysis rates. Congrats to Bhavish, Mostapha, and Griffin for their contributions! ​
November 1, 2025
Farewell to Rachita Rana, who will begin her assistant professorship at LSU! The group wishes you the best in your future endeavors!​
October 29, 2025
The group is on a roll in October, with Ran publishing a collaborative paper with our colleagues at MU in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society! In this work, we report a scalable synthetic procedure for electrospun Mo—SiO2 nanofibers and show that they are exceptional catalysts for propylene metathesis.
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October 28, 2025
Congrats to Matt on his recent publication in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering! In this work done in collaboration with scientists at Oak Ridge and NREL, we evaluate the potential of lignin-derived compounds and water as cosolvents to eliminate the need for exogeneous solvent in RCF processes.
October 22, 2025
Check out our latest publication done in collaboration with colleagues at NREL, CSU, and UPR detailing efficient routes to lactone monomers from bio-derived feedstocks in Nature Reviews Chemistry!
October 21, 2025
This semester, the group is joined by two new students: Benjamin Raffy, a visiting student from EPFL, and Khadiza Rahman, a UROP at MIT. Welcome to the group!
September 8, 2025
Congratulations to the group's newest doctor, Griffin Drake! Best of luck in your future endeavors. The group will miss you dearly!
September 4, 2025
Farewell to Matthew Liu, who will be joining the Persson Group at UC Berkeley as a postdoc. The group will miss you—enjoy the weather on the West Coast!
September 3, 2025
Congratulations to our newest doctors, who defended over the summer: Blake Johnson, Kaylee McCormack, Matthew Webber, Daniel Zheng, and Bhavish Dinakar. The Román Group will miss you all. Best of luck in your future endeavors!
August 12, 2025
Congrats to Daniel, Xiao, and Matt for their publications in JACS and ACS Catalysis!
July 24, 2025
Congrats to Anna and Griffin for their latest publication in JACS Au!
July 7, 2025
Congrats to Matt for his latest publication in Cell Reports Physical Science!
May 9, 2025
Congrats to Daniel Zheng for his latest publication in ACS Catalysis!
April 18, 2025
Congrats to graduate students Katie and Xiao, who were selected as MITEI fellows!
February 4, 2025
Congrats to Daniel Zheng and Kaylee McCormack for their contributions reviewing confined water for catalysis in Chemical Reviews!
January 6, 2025
Dexter Loh, Emily Wu, and Taras Nagornyy join the group as PhD students. Welcome!
November 26, 2024
Matt and Jamison's collaborative paper reviewing lignin's potential as a substrate for sustainable aviation fuel blendstocks is published in Nature Materials. Congratulations!
November 4, 2024
Zachary Westman joins the group as a postdoc from the Christopher and Abu-Omar groups at UC Santa Barbara. Welcome!
October 7, 2024
Matthew Liu joins as a postdoc from the Tarpeh Group at Stanford. Welcome!
October 4, 2024
Jie's collaborative paper with the Stahl group and NREL titled "Accessing monomers from lignin through carbon-carbon bond cleavage" is published in Nature Reviews Chemistry. Congratulations!
October 1, 2024
Marcos Garcia Farpon joins as a postdoc from the Prieto group at ITQ Valencia. Welcome!
September 20, 2024
Matt's collaborative paper titled "Sustainable Aviation Fuels from Biomass and Biowaste via Bio- and Chemo-Catalytic Conversion: Catalysis, Process Challenges, and Opportunities" is published in Green Energy and Environment. Congratulations!
September 18, 2024
Alexi, Lucas, and Bowei's collaborative paper with the Chen group titled "Synthesis of α-methylene-δ-valerolactone and its selective polymerization from a product mixture for concurrent separation and polymer production" is published in
Green Chemistry. Congratulations!
September 1, 2024
Xiao is awarded a postgraduate doctoral scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Congratulations!
September 1, 2024
Alexandra Krestnikova joins as a visiting student from ETH Zurich. Welcome!
August 23, 2024
Professor Román's collaborative paper titled "A Career in Catalysis: Mark E. Davis" is published in ACS Catalysis. Congratulations!
August 14, 2024
Our collaborative paper with NREL titled "Reducing Solvent Consumption in Reductive Catalytic Fractionation through Lignin Oil Recycling" is published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. Congratulations!
August 2, 2024
Daniel and Kaylee's collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn and Li groups titled "Uniting activity design principles of anode catalysts for direct liquid fuel cells" is published in Energy and Environmental Science Catalysis. Congratulations!
July 25, 2024
Melissa's collaborative paper with the Kulik group titled "Computational Screening of Putative Catalyst Transition Metal Complexes as Guests in a [Ga4L6]12- Nanocage" is published in Inorganic Chemistry. Congratulations!
July 25, 2024
Our collaborative paper titled "Enabling Lignin Valorization Through Integrated Advances in Plant Biology and Biorefining" is published in Annual Reviews. Congratulations!
July 3, 2024
Daniel and Xiao's collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn and Li groups titled "A Cobalt-Platinum-Ruthenium System for Acidic Methanol Oxidation" is published in Chemistry of Materials. Congratulations!
July 1, 2024
Vitek Hrbacek joins from the Center of Polymer Systems in Zlin as a visiting student. Welcome!
June 26, 2024
Husain's collaborative paper with the Kulik group titled "Leveraging natural language processing to curate the tmCAT, tmPHOTO, tmBIO, and tmSCO datasets of functional transition metal complexes" is published in Faraday Discussions. Congratulations!
June 12, 2024
Husain is named a 2024/25 Shell-MIT Energy Fellow. Congratulations!
June 10, 2024
Joy's collaborative paper with the Manthiram group titled "Electrifying Hydroformylation Catalysts Exposes Voltage-Driven C-C Bond Formation" is published in JACS. Congratulations!
June 5, 2024
Mickey's collaborative paper with NREL titled "Design and Validation of a High-Throughput Reductive Catalytic Fractionation Method" is published in JACS Au. Congratulations!
May 29, 2024
Lucas completes his master's thesis and graduates! Congratulations!
March 29, 2024
Stan's collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn group titled "Platinum/Tantalum Carbide Core-Shell Nanoparticles with Sub-Monolayer Shells for Methanol and Oxygen Electrocatalysis" is published in Advanced Energy Materials. Congratulations!
March 19, 2024
Our collaborative paper titled "Recommendations for improving rigor and reproducibility in site specific characterization" is published in the Journal of Catalysis. Congratulations!
March 13, 2024
Soon's collaborative paper with the Gomez-Bombarelli, Moliner, and Olivetti groups titled "One-Pot Synthesis of CHA/ERI-Type Zeolite Intergrowth from a Single Multiselective Organic Structure-Directing Agent" is published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Congratulations!
March 6, 2024
Soon's collaborative paper with the Gomez-Bombarelli, Moliner, and Olivetti groups titled "ZeoSyn: A Comprehensive Zeolite Synthesis Dataset Enabling Machine-Learning Rationalization of Hydrothermal Parameters" is published in ACS Central Science. Congratulations!
February 15, 2024
Karl's collaborative paper with the Surendranath group titled "Electrically driven proton transfer promotes Brønsted acid catalysis by orders of magnitude" is published in Science and featured in MIT News. Congratulations!
February 9, 2024
Husain's collaborative paper with the Kulik group titled "Large-scale comparison of Fe and Ru polyolefin C-H activation catalysts" is published in the Journal of Catalysis. Congratulations!
January 22, 2024
New PhD student Juliana Lu-Yang begins their work in the Román group. Welcome!
January 19, 2024
Karl's collaborative paper with the Surendranath group titled "An electrochemical approach for designing thermochemical bimetallic nitrate hydrogenation catalysts" is published in Nature Catalysis. Congratulations!
January 15, 2024
Dr. Rachita Rana from Kulkarni and Bare groups at UC Davis and SLAC joins the Román lab as a postdoc. Welcome!
January 4, 2024
Our collaborative paper with the Manthiram group titled "Direct propylene epoxidation via water activation over Pd-Pt electrocatalysts" is published in Science. Congratulations!
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