Questions from students, collaborators, and press

Graduate admissions go through the Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering at The University of Alabama — apply to the program and name Prof. Daniel H. Whitford and the Electrochemical Carbon Lab in your statement. For undergraduates, I usually take one or two students per semester through directed research credit or a paid summer position; email me a short note about your interests and a transcript. I am a PhD candidate, so I co-mentor with Prof. Whitford rather than admit students directly, but I am happy to talk through whether the fit is right.

For undergraduates: completion of general and physical chemistry, plus comfort with the engineering math sequence, is enough to start. The most useful skills are careful lab notebook habits and basic scripting in Python for data analysis — both can be learned on the job. For graduate work, coursework in electrochemistry, transport phenomena, or reaction engineering helps, but curiosity and persistence matter more than a perfect checklist. No prior electrochemistry experience is required; almost everyone in the lab learned the techniques here.

We run an electric current through captured carbon dioxide and water to rebuild them into useful molecules — the reverse of burning fuel. Using renewable electricity and a copper-based catalyst, we can convert CO₂ into ethylene and ethanol, two of the highest-volume building blocks the chemical industry relies on. The big challenges are selectivity, durability, and cost. My work targets all three using gas-diffusion electrodes and membrane-electrode assemblies.

I welcome collaborations on catalyst characterization, operando spectroscopy, reactor modeling, and techno-economic analysis. The cleanest path is a short email describing the question and what each side would contribute; for anything involving unpublished data we will set up a simple data-sharing agreement through the university so authorship and licensing are clear up front. Published datasets are openly available, so you do not need permission to build on those — though a heads-up is always appreciated.

For open-access papers published under a Creative Commons license (most of my recent work, including the 2025 Nature Energy article), you can reuse figures with proper citation — please credit the original paper and authors. For figures in subscription journals, reuse is governed by the publisher; request permission through their rights service, which is usually free for academic and educational use. If you want a clean, high-resolution version or an editable source file, just email me and I will send it.

If we have worked together closely — a research project, a course where I was your TA, or sustained mentoring — I am glad to. To write a strong, specific letter I need at least three weeks' notice, a current CV, a short note on what the letter is for, and the deadlines and submission links. The more context you give me, the better I can tailor it. I will always tell you honestly if I do not think I am the right person to write the strongest letter for a given application.

Yes — I give invited talks and guest lectures on electrochemical CO₂ utilization, catalyst design, and the techno-economics of carbon conversion, and I am happy to explain the science for journalists in plain language. I can usually accommodate requests with a few weeks of lead time. For interviews I prefer email or a scheduled video call so I can give accurate, considered answers.

Analysis code, data-processing pipelines, and techno-economic models live on GitHub, organized by paper. Raw and processed datasets supporting each publication are archived with permanent DOIs and linked from the publications page. If a repository or dataset you need is not posted yet — sometimes there is an embargo before a paper appears — email me and I will share what I can.

Occasionally, when the research fit is strong and funding is arranged on the visiting scholar side. The best cases are self-funded students or fellows with a clear project that complements ongoing lab work in electrode fabrication or operando characterization. Reach out well ahead — typically six months — so we can align on scope, safety training, and university paperwork.