Allen J. Bard Award
Debra R. Rolison
Wednesday, May 27 | 1030h
Room 3B, Seattle Convention Center – Arch
We Are Leaving Power & Energy on the Table: Electroanalytical & Architectural Insights
by Debra R. Rolison
Debra R. Rolison heads the Advanced Electrochemical Materials section at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Her team designs, synthesizes, characterizes, and applies 3D-structured, ultraporous, multifunctional, hold-in-your-hand nanoarchitectures for rate-critical applications such as catalysis and energy storage/conversion. Dr. Rolison was a Faculty Scholar at Florida Atlantic University, receiving her BS in Chemistry in 1975 and the Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry. She completed her PhD in Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1980) with Prof. Royce W. Murray, then joined NRL as a Staff Scientist.
Dr. Rolison is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, Materials Research Society, and Association for Women in Science. Her major awards include the 2024 ECS Battery Division Technology Award (with Drs. Joseph Parker and Jeffrey Long); 2018 William H. Nichols Medal; 2017 E. O. Hulburt Award; 2015 Department of the Navy Dr. Dolores M. Etter Top Scientist & Engineer Team Award (with Drs. Joseph Parker and Jeffrey Long); 2012 Charles N. Reilley Award of the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry; 2011 ACS Award in the Chemistry of Materials; and 2011 Hillebrand Prize. Her editorial advisory board service includes Advanced Energy Materials, Analytical Chemistry, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, and Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Dr. Rolison is the author of over 275 articles and holds 49 US patents.
Vittorio de Nora Award
Thomas Zawodzinski
Tuesday, May 26 | 1130h
Room 4C-1, Seattle Convention Center – Arch
A Perspective on Polymer Electrolyte Membranes for Electrolyzers
by Thomas Zawodzinski
Thomas Zawodzinski holds the Governor’s Chair in Electrical Energy Conversion and Storage, with appointments in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (UT) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He made significant contributions to electro-catalysis, gas diffusion media, and fuel cell durability, as well as to research on redox flow and metal-air batteries, electrochemical sensors, electro-responsive polymers, electro-separations, and related electrochemical technologies. His work focused primarily on ionic systems, particularly polymer electrolytes, for which he developed multiple innovative analytical approaches. Throughout his career, he collaborated extensively with industry partners, translating fundamental science into practical technologies.
Currently, the Zawodzinski lab emphasizes adapting fuel cell advances to a range of other “open” electrochemical systems relevant to an electron economy powered by renewable electricity. Through an ARPA-E project, his team achieved a ten-fold reduction in the amount of platinum needed to run a fuel cell system. The University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF) licensed this technology in 2016.
After completing his PhD at The State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo under the guidance of Profs. Robert Osteryoung and Robert Kurland, Prof. Zawodzinski spent 13 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory researching polymer electrolyte fuel cells. From there, he went to Case Western Reserve University, where he served as the F. Alex Nason Professor of Engineering, Director of the Case Advanced Power Institute, and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Fuel Cells. Prof. Zawodzinski was the founding Director of the Wright Fuel Cell Group. He joined UT in September 2009. Prof. Zawodzinski received the 2016 ECS Energy Technology Division Research Award and is a Fellow of The Electrochemical Society and American Chemical Society Polymer Division. The author of more than 200 refereed papers and several book chapters, he holds a dozen patents. He joined ECS in 2001.