Joesene Soto Pérez
KIC Experimental Fellow (2022 - pres)
Joesene Soto, a native of Puerto Rico, earned his B.Sc. in Chemistry in 2017 and his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry in 2022 from the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. He focused his graduate work on understanding the chemistry of emerging nanomaterials as low loading Platinum group metals (PGM) combined with first-row transition metals for energy conversion reactions. He is currently a Postdoctoral Associate in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology department at Cornell University. He holds a joint appointment fellowship with the Cornell Energy Systems Institute (CESI) and the Kavli Institute at Cornell (KIC). He enjoys running, reading, traveling, and visiting museums in his spare time.
Research
Joesene’s research interests include electrochemistry, x-ray spectroscopy, materials characterization, and operando techniques. He focuses his current research on synthesizing first-row transition metal nitrides and oxides as electrocatalysts for alkaline exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) and anion-exchange water electrolyzers (AEMWEs). He also focuses on identifying activity-stability relationships in non-precious-metal AEMFCs catalysts. He highlights using in situ and operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) combined with electrochemistry. His faculty sponsor is Professor Héctor Abruña (Chemistry).
Educational Background
- Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry, University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, 2022
- B.Sc. in Chemistry, University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, 2017
