Spotlight on Staff : Dr Laurie King

Faculty welcomes Dr Laurie King

Dr Laurie King joins the Chemistry Department after relocating to Manchester from California. She previously worked in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University within the SUNCAT Centre for Interface Science and Catalysis. 

Her journey so far

At the very beginning of her career, Laurie worked within the Materials Department at Imperial College London for her PhD, before securing a role at the University of Wyoming as a Post-doctoral Researcher, and moving to the USA.  

Two years later, Laurie was taken on at Stanford University in the same role, before promoting to Research Engineer. It was in this role that she began leading a subgroup of students and postdocs focused on the design, synthesis and characterisation of catalysts for electrochemical energy conversion devices, which was the focus of her work.

She said: “At Stanford University I had the privilege of working and collaborating with theoreticians, microscopists, and industrial partners, including Nel Hydrogen and the Toyota Research Institute. Before that, I spent two years working at the University of Wyoming researching quantum dot sensitised solar cells, or solar energy harvesting.”

Now at Manchester Metropolitan, she will be focusing on developing new and novel materials for electrochemical water splitting to generate hydrogen, and to generate power from fuel cells. She will be conducting her research as part of the Manchester Fuel Cell Innovation Centre.