PNNL

Congratulations to Dr. Samantha Johnson at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on receiving a best poster award at the Northwest Theoretical Chemistry Conference. The award recognized the quality of her computational chemistry research as well as the design of her poster and her ability to share her insights.

Johnson's work focuses on the energy barriers to turning ammonia into nitrogen. She used computations to examine catalysts that can complete these reactions as efficiently as possible, without excess energy inputs. The computations allowed her to quickly screen and study catalysts and their performance. Her poster focused on her findings on a molybdenum-based catalyst that may be a promising option for converting ammonia.

Johnson received the award from Dr. Thom Dunning on behalf of the Journal of Physical Chemistry, a co-sponsor of the conference. The conference was open to faculty and students at all universities and colleges in the Northwest. Around 50 scientists with an interest in theoretical or computational chemistry and related disciplines attended the event on October 26 and 27.

Johnson's research was funded by the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science's Basic Energy Sciences. She has worked as a postdoctoral fellow with the center since late January 2017. Other award winners at the conference were Meredith Moore and Alessio Petrone from the University of Washington, who received best poster awards from the Journal of Chemical Physics and Joseph Radler, University of Washington, who received a best poster award from the Journal of Physical Chemistry.