Archived News

11-25-2020: We welcome our newest group member, Allison St. John!

11-12-2020: Peipei finishes her postdoc stay in our group and goes back to China. It has been such a joy to have her around. We will all miss her!

07-17-2020: Our paper on photoelectrochemical NADH regeneration is accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phys. Thanks to Shaochen and our collaborator Professor Dunwei Wang for the great work!

05-21-2020: Ehab advances to PhD candidacy. Congratulations Ehab!

04-14-2020: Congratulations to Dr. Sebastian Pantovich for successfully defending his thesis!

02-17-2020: Our paper in collaboration with Professor Aaron Deskins is accepted for publication in ChemPhotoChem. Thanks to Peipei, Sebastian and Norbert for their great work!

01-31-2020: Our paper in collaboration with Professor Jie He's group is accepted for publication in ACS Appl. Energy Mater. Congrats!

12-10-2019: Congratulations to Shaochen for successfully defending his thesis! We wish him the best of luck on his next adventure!

11-19-2019: We welcome our newest group member, Tianqi Jin!

08-21-2019: Norbert advances to PhD candidacy. Congratulations Norbert!

06-27-2019: Our paper on atomic-size Cu catalysts in collaboration with Professor Aaron Deskins' group is accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phys. Good job Tom and Sam!

06-12-2019: Congratulations Dr. Jarec Rondeau! Jarec will start his adventure with ProVerde Laboratories in a few days. We wish him the best of luck!

05-23-2019: Mike's work on surface carbonate binding to Re(I) and Mn(I) complexes has been accepted for publication in J. Coord. Chem.!

03-21-2019: We welcome our newest group member, Esraa Ahmad!

03-11-2019: Sebastian has been awarded the Graduate School Dissertation Year Fellowship. Congrats Sebastian!

11-10-2018: Our paper on single-site photocatalysis in collaboration with Professors Caputo, Grimm and Frenkel is accepted for publication in J. Am. Chem. Soc. Thanks all!

11-09-2018: Congratulations to Dr. Tom Fenton for successfully defending his thesis! Tom will start his adventure with American Boronite Corporation in MA. We wish him the best of luck!

10-01-2018: Our paper on Cu/TiO2 photocatalysis in collaboration with Professor Aaron Deskins' group is accepted for publication in ACS Catal. Good job Tom!

09-03-2018: We welcome the youngest member of our group, Joy Okolie! Congratulations Norbert!!

08-14-2018: Congratulations to Ben for successfully defending his thesis! Ben will start a teaching position at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, NH. We wish him the best of luck!

04-23-2018: Our paper on Au/TiO2 photocatalysts in collaboration with Professor Jie He's group is accepted for publication in Chem. Eur. J. Thanks Mike!

04-11-2018: Our paper on a surface Fe(II)-terpyridine catalyst for visible-light dye degradation is accepted for publication in Can. J. Chem. Great work Ben, Peipei and Tom!

03-29-2018: Congratulations to Dr. Michael Louis as he leaves our group to pursue a career as a Senior Chemist at Jordi Labs in Mansfield, Mass. We wish you the best of luck!

11-30-2017: We welcome two new graduate students, Samantha Lavallee and Ehab Shaaban!

09-08-2017: Our former undergraduate student Matt Marcinkowski visited the office this past week. He went on to get his PhD from Tufts University and is now currently a postdoctoral researcher at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). It was great to see him stop by!

08-03-2017: Our CO2 Hydrogenation project in collaboration with Dr. Jie He is funded by NSF for the next three years!

07-12-2017: The group had a retreat in the Echo Lake State Park. We all enjoyed hiking, even when it was raining!

06-14-2017: Jarec advances to PhD candidacy. Congratulations!

06-12-2017: Kayla, Sam, and Daiyao join us again for summer research. Welcome back!!

05-22-2017: Our paper on microwave-synthesized surface cobalt catalyst is accepted for publication in Dalton Transactions. Great work Tom and Sam!

04-17-2017: Congratulations to Mike Louis for successfully defending his PhD thesis! Dr. Louis is now the third PhD graduate from the Li group. We wish him all the best!

03-23-2017: We welcome Dr. Peipei Huang who joins our group as a Postdoctoral Associate to work on the DOE project!

01-30-2017: We like to congratulate our Ben Stewart on the birth of his son, Samuel earlier this month! Samuel James joined Ben and Sarah Stewart on January 5th in the late morning. A great start to the new year!

11-18-2016: The Li group welcomes three new graduate students, Norbert, Shaochen and Sam! A ping-pong tournament is being planned as the first qualifying exam for them.

11-17-2016: Our second paper on photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction in collaboration with Dr. Jay Agarwal and Dr. Dunwei Wang has been accepted for publication in ChemComm!

08-16-2016: Congratulations to Tom Fenton for passing his proposal and advancing to doctoral candidacy!

08-03-2016: Our solar fuel project in collaboration with Dr. Christine Caputo and Dr. Tijana Rajh is funded by the DOE EPSCoR program for the next three years!

07-28-2016: Our Cu/TiO2 paper in collaboration with Dr. Aaron Deskins has been accepted for publication in J. Photon. Energy!

07-18-2016: Our photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction paper in collaboration with Dr. Dunwei Wang has been accepted for publication in Chem. -Eur. J.

07-08-2016: Our Co(cyclam)X/TiO2 paper in collaboration with Dr. Tijana Rajh has been accepted for publication in J. Mol. Catal. A.

06-02-2016: We welcome three summer undergraduate researchers, Anyu Gao, Kayla Eckley and Samatha Lavallee!

04-15-2016: Congratulations to Tong Jin who has successfully defended for her PhD! Dr. Jin is the second PhD student from the Li group and we wish her good luck!

03-24-2016: Tong publishes two more papers in Inorg. Chem. and J. Coord. Chem. Congratulations!

02-15-2016: Gonghu starts sabbatical leave in Dr. Etsuko Fujita's group at Brookhaven National Lab.

12-08-2015: Gonghu gave a solar energy workshop to the STEAM for Girls club at Clinton Middle School in MA.

10-30-2015: Our invited review article on surface-immobilized molecular CO2-reduction catalysts is now published by Comment Inorg. Chem.; another paper on the effect of ligand derivatization has been accepted for publication in J. Mol. Catal. A.

10-21-2015: The department football competition is still going strong, and the Li group is currently dominating the scoreboards. Mike Louis has won two weeks and Sebastian has won one as well, however Sebastian currently leads the department in correctly predicted games!

10-06-2015: Former group member Dr. Jay Agarwal recently visited our campus! He presented a seminar entitled, “Electrocatalytic Conversion of CO2 to CO Using Mn(I)-Based Molecular Catalysts” to the department and even joined us for lunch.

09-16-2015: This fall our chemistry department is having a friendly competition in predicting scores for the NFL every week based upon a given spread. In the first week, our very own Michael Louis came out on top! He predicted 13 out of 16 games correctly. Congratulations!

08-07-2015: Our TiO2 photocatalysis project is funded by NSF for the next three years!

07-27-2015: Congratulations to Chao Liu who has successfully defended for his PhD! Dr. Liu is the first PhD student from the Li group and has successfully attained a post-doctoral position at Northwestern University starting in October. We wish him good luck on his new science adventures!

07-16-2015: The Li group had a nice picnic at Pawtuckaway State Park in nearby Nottingham, NH. We enjoyed a nice barbeque, soccer games, as well as canoeing on the lake!

06-26-2015: Gonghu has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Thanks everyone for the great work!

05-25-2015: We welcome three summer undergraduate researchers, Wendy, Gabriel and Ami.

04-22-2015: Ram Subedi, Cameron McInnes, and Barry Powers presented posters at UNH's Undergraduate Research Conference for the interdisciplinary science and engineering program. Congratulations to them on the excellent research and presentations!

03-26-2015: We would like to welcome back Mike Louis and Chao Liu from ACS Denver! Mike Louis presented a poster at the conference titled, "FTIR Studies of Interactions between Carbon Dioxide and Surface Molecular Photocatalysts."

02-22-2015: The Li group has been very busy so far this winter, including with our ping pong tournament! Each Sunday the Li group gathers in three teams to battle it out for the championship. Both doubles and singles matches are included as each team battles for points throughout the semester to take home the trophy. Teams include rhenium, titanium and cobalt. Competition is stiff with titanium being early leaders with 11 points, rhenium follows with 7 points and cobalt rounds it up with 6 points. In a seperate bracket for the singles there is a three way tie for 1st place between Gonghu, Jeff and Tong. Time will only tell with what team will come up on top!

12-05-2014: Mike Louis has advanced to doctoral candidacy. Congratulations!

12-04-2014: Congratulations to Ben Stewart who was awarded an internship with Dr. Chris Bauer! They will be leading a science classroom for non-science majors called "Fire and Ice."

12-04-2014: Sebastian Pantovich and Jarec Rondeau have joined the Li group as graduate students. Welcome!

10-24-2014: Gonghu has been invited to serve as an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports, a journal from Nature Publishing Group.

09-20-2014: The Solar Energy workshop was a success! Students and teachers from the New England area came and participated in learning about solar energy and how this energy can be utilized and harnessed. Experiments included making our own dye-sensitized solar cells, as well as studying dye degradation with TiO2. A big thank you to all that participated and contributed to this event!

09-03-2014: Our former member Kevin Dubois visited the lab and enjoyed lunch with current research students. It was great to see him!

08-10-2014: Our Co(cyclam)X/TiO2 paper is among the Hot ChemComm articles for May 2014! Nice job, Tong and Chao. Link

08-08-2014: Kaolin paper accepted for publication in J. Mol. Catal. A. Congratulations to He, Chao and Mike!

06-18-2014: Our group has received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award! The grant will support our research on solar CO2 reduction using heterogenized molecular catalysts.

06-18-2014: Tong has advanced to doctoral candidacy. Congratulations!!

06-07-2014: Group ping pong Tournament! Li’s group participated in a social gathering which was a ping pong tournament. Everyone played very well and there was lots of good competition between players. The final came down to Tong Jin and Ram Subedi which was a barn burner. Ram came out on top and was dubbed ping pong champion!

05-26-2014: Our very own Ben Stewart is getting married! Graduate student, Ben Stewart, was married to his fiancée Sarah on May 24th. We wish them both the best and hope they have a lovely honeymoon in Quebec!