Welcome to our new faculty member – Charlotte Vogt!
I’m 
, 29 years old born in the Netherlands. My research focuses on figuring out the fundamentals of how catalysts and catalytic reactions work. It’s always surprising to me that catalysis – which influences a third of the global gross domestic product – is generally employed empirically, often without any significant degree of fundamental understanding. A big reason for that is that the reactions are incredibly complex, with a cohort of important events all happening at the same time. Finding ways to study them, under realistic conditions, in spite of – or rather, making use of – their complexity is the aim of my group. To figure out exactly how structure-activity relationships work, so that we can eventually make those processes better in a bottom-up fashion, or to help invent the new ones that are necessary to bridge the energy, climate, and materials crises that our global society are facing. An example is the conversion of carbon dioxide to valuable chemicals and fuels over catalysts. To study these types of reactions we develop special spectroscopic methodologies (a combination of specific experimental designs, state-of-the-art spectroscopy, and multivariate analyses) which will allow us to study details we couldn’t study before. I also have a MSc focused on Business Management, enjoy entrepreneurship, and enjoy writing.