Faculty Profile

I was born and raised in Lahore and received my B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology (UET Lahore) in 2007. After working as a lab engineer for one year at the Faisalabad Campus of UET Lahore, I moved to Deajeon, South Korea to obtain my M.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). I completed my M.S. in 2010 and subsequently joined the Institute of Energy Technology of ETH Zürich (Switzerland) to pursue my doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Christoph Müller. My PhD thesis was focused on the development and characterization of transition metal oxides for CO2 capture and H2 production via high temperature thermochemical cycles. I defended my Ph.D. thesis in 2016 and continued to pursue my research interests in CO2 capture and utilization as a postdoc researcher at ETH Zürich. In Fall 2017, I was awarded an SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation) Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship. Subsequently, I joined the Román lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Spring 2018 where I studied the valorization of lignin via the activation of C-O, C-H and C-C bonds in lignin derived phenolic dimers. My research interests include synthesis and characterization of functional materials for sustainable energy production and heterogeneous catalysis.