Bridging the gap from surface science to heterogeneous catalysis Faraday Discussion

Simon Beaumont graduated from Cambridge, UK in 2007, receiving the Norrish Prize for distinction in Physical Chemistry. He completed a PhD in surface science and nanoparticle catalysis under Prof. R. M. Lambert at Cambridge, followed by postdoctoral research with Prof. G. A. Somorjai at UC Berkeley. Joining Durham University, he held prestigious Leverhulme Trust and Addison Wheeler fellowships, establishing an independent research programme in surface spectroscopy and catalysis. Appointed University Lecturer in 2015, he became Associate Professor in 2021. His research group continue to focus on in situ spectroscopy and the use of nanomaterials in understanding catalytic phenomena. His research activities combine fundamental 'blue skies' exploration with strong collaborations across industry.

Jingguang Chen is the Thayer Lindsley Professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University, with a joint appointment as Senior Chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He started his academic career at the University of Delaware and rose to the rank of the Claire LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering. He is the co-author of over 500 journal publications and over 20 United States patents. He is a fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering of USA.

Lucas Foppa's research focuses on the development of artificial-intelligence concepts and methods and their application to materials science and heterogeneous catalysis. Since 2021, he is the head of the group "ab initio and AI methods for heterogeneous catalysis" at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, where he works on artificial-intelligence approaches integrating experimental and theoretical data and on the advancement of symbolic-regression-based methods. 

Swetlana Schauermann is Professor of Physical Chemistry at Kiel University, Germany. She earned a PhD from Fritz-Haber-Institute (Berlin) in 2005 and worked as postdoctoral associate with Richard Lambert (Cambridge University, UK) and Charles Campbell (University of Washington, Seattle, USA). In 2007, she joined Fritz-Haber-Institute as a group leader of the Molecular Beam group and later as a leader of an independent group in the scope of Minerva Program of the Max-Planck-Society. Her honours include an Otto-Hahn Medal of MPG, Jochen-Block-Prize of the German Catalytic Society and an ERC starting grant.
Her current research focuses on atomistic-level understanding of heterogeneously catalysed reactions occurring on a variety of well-defined model surfaces, including nanostructured model catalysis, oxide-based materials and interfaces functionalized with organic ligands, both in UHV and under ambient pressure conditions. She addresses the mechanistic aspects of heterogeneously catalysed reactions employing spectroscopic, microscopic and molecular beam techniques as well as single crystal adsorption calorimetry.

Veronique Van Speybroeck is a full professor at Ghent University and head of the Center for Molecular modeling.  She is an expert in modeling nanoporous materials for catalysis and adsorption.  All applications are inspired and performed in close synergy with experimental groups.  She developed new methodologies to model as close as possible realistic materials/processes, including methods for calculating chemical kinetics in  nanoporous materials and for simulating complex catalytic cycles at operating conditions.  Currently, she is expanding the horizon to resolve complex catalytic cycles across different scales.  She is recipient of two ERC grants, various prizes, e.g. the Dr. Karl Wamsler innovation award in 2023 and the Francqui prize in exact sciences  in 2024 and an elected member of the Royal (Flemish) Academy for Science and the Arts of Belgium.