Prof. Drew Higgins

Bio

Assistant Professor – McMaster University (2019-present) 

Associate Staff Scientist – Stanford University / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2017-2018)

Banting Postdoctoral Fellow – Stanford University (2015-2017)

Visiting Scholar – Los Alamos National Laboratory (2014)

PhD, University of Waterloo, 2015

MASc, University of Waterloo, 2011

BASc, University of Waterloo, 2009

Drew was born in London, Ontario — a city commonly regarded as the 2nd best London in the world. He studied Chemical Engineering through the University of Waterloo’s 5-year co-op program, which allowed him to gain almost two years of experience working in academic laboratories and industrial settings. Recognizing that academia suited his lifestyle, he pursued graduate school and completed his MASc in 2011 and PhD in 2015 in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo under the supervision of Professor Zhongwei Chen. During this time, his research focused on the development of nanostructured catalyst materials for low temperature fuel cells and metal-air batteries. He also spent almost one year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as a visiting scholar working with Dr. Piotr Zelenay, Dr. Gang Wu and LANL’s talented fuel cell research team.

In 2015, Drew began a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University under the supervision of Professor Thomas Jaramillo, carrying out fundamental electrochemical CO2 reduction catalysis research. He was promoted to an Associate Staff Scientist in 2017, and continued with his research in the field of electrocatalysis for electrochemical CO2 reduction, fuel cells and electrochemical water splitting technologies.

He finally made his return to the Great White North, where he began as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University in January 2019. Outside of “work” (quotations suggesting that pursuing one’s passion need not be considered work), Drew can be found socializing with friends and colleagues, playing sports, spending time outdoors, or yelling at the television watching his beloved Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Raptors or Toronto Blue Jays.

Selected Publications

Understanding the Origin of Highly Selective CO2 Electroreduction to CO on Ni, N-doped Carbon Catalysts

Authors: D. Koshy, S. Chen, D. Lee, M. Burke Stevens, A. Abdellah, S. Dull, G. Chen, D. Nordlund, A. Gallo, C. Hahn, D. Higgins, Z. Bao, T. Jaramillo

Volume/Number: Angewandte Chemie International Edition, https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201912857

Year: 2020

Electro-Oxidation of Methane on Platinum under Ambient Conditions

Authors: M. Boyd, A. Latimer, C. Dickens, A. Nielander, C. Hahn, J. Norskov, D. Higgins, T. Jaramillo
Volume/Number: ACS Catalysis, DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.9b01207

Year: 2019

Gas-Diffusion Electrodes for Carbon Dioxide Reduction: A New Paradigm

Authors: D. Higgins, C. Hahn, C. Xiang, T. Jaramillo, A. Weber
Volume/Number: ACS Energy Letters,  DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.8b02035
Year: 2019