ChE’s Zhu "Clark" Chen Receives James M. Douglas Early Career Faculty Development Award

Content

Assistant Professor Zhu "Clark" Chen of the UMass Amherst Chemical Engineering (ChE) Department is the recipient of the prestigious James M. Douglas Early Career Faculty Development Award, bestowed by the College of Engineering. The award was established in 2014 “in honor of Professor Douglas’ research innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, and ability to tackle complex problems using innovative and non-traditional approaches to achieve results.” 

The Douglas Fund is meant to support a faculty member whose entrepreneurial spirit and creativity is an inspiration to colleagues and students alike.

Chen’s laboratory aims to tackle challenges in renewable energy and sustainability. 

As Chen explains, “We are interested in electrochemistry and catalysis for energy conversion and storage. Our group aspires to understand fundamental aspects of interfacial reactions and to design functional materials/devices for the future energy and chemical industries. Primary interests of our research group include electrochemical carbon-dioxide conversion, low-temperature water electrolysis, and electrochemical-biomass upgrade.” 

Chen adds that, “In our research, we combine materials synthesis, high-throughput screening, operando spectroscopy, and electroanalytical techniques to facilitate mechanism studies, accelerate materials discovery, and streamline device integration.”

Chen received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University under the mentorship of Professor Bruce Koel. His research at Princeton focused on developing catalysts for the oxygen-evolution reaction and investigating semiconductor-surface chemistry. Before that, he earned his B.S. in Nanotechnology Engineering and M.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

After earning his Ph.D. from Princeton, Chen performed postdoctoral research at Northwestern University with Professor Richard Van Duyne. There, he focused on implementing surface- and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy to investigate catalysts during electrochemical reactions.

In 2020, Chen moved to the University of Toronto as a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow to work on electrochemical carbon-dioxide reduction with Professor Edward Sargent. Chen began his independent career in the UMass Amherst ChE department in 2022. 

ChE Professor Douglas passed away at the age of 83 in 2017. Among many other accomplishments, Douglas had been a full professor at UMass Amherst for nearly 30 years, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and was a recipient of the UMass Amherst Chancellor’s Medal. (April 2025)