Graduate student receives Department of Energy research award

November 22, 2023 - by Kim Delker

Stephen Porter
Stephen Porter

Stephen Porter, a graduate student in the Nanoscience and Microsystems Engineering Program at The University of New Mexico, has been selected to receive the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research Award.

Porter, a Ph.D. student studying with Abhaya Datye, Distinguished Regents Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, was selected for the award for his project titled “In-situ transmission electron microscopy of self-healing heterogenous catalysts,” which will be conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Porter is analyzing transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images of heterogenous catalysts, as well as studying the mechanism behind the oxidation of a PdPt system. In addition, Porter wrote a proposal to gain access to the facilities at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnology (CINT) to study these systems in-situ. He also has research focused on mathematically modeling TEM images of single atoms in order to determine the number of atoms within the lattice as well as their composition.

Earlier this year, Porter won awards at the Microscopy and Microanalysis conference and the Rocky Mountain Catalysis Society meeting.