Dr. Tracy L. Lohr

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Clara Immerwahr Award 2018 is

Dr. Tracy L. Lohr, Northwestern University.

Academic Background

Dr. Tracy L. Lohr obtained her BSc (honors chemistry, Co-op, with distinction) from the University of Victoria (Canada, supervisor: J. Scott McIndoe) in 2008 and received her PhD in organometallic catalysis from the University of Calgary in 2013 (Canada, supervisor: Prof. Warren E. Piers) where she studied well-defined metal hydroxo species for small molecule activation and C-H activation. She moved to Northwestern University (USA) in 2014 for a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Tobin J. Marks. There, she switched disciplines from homogeneous to thermodynamically leveraged homo-heterogeneous tandem and traditional heterogeneous catalysis. In addition to her work on deconstructing biomass with tandem catalysts, she worked on supported molybdenum oxide materials that are active for bio-available alcohol oxidation, transesterification, olefin metathesis, reductive carbonyl coupling, and propane dehydrogenation.

As a result of her research fellowship, Tracy was invited to join the Chemistry Faculty at Northwestern University as a Research Assistant Professor in the spring of 2016, and works within that department and the University’s Center for Catalysis and Surface Science (CCSS) under Prof. Tobin J. Marks. She currently supervises a group of 15 researchers (post-doctoral fellows and both graduate and undergraduate students) while directing their projects in olefin polymerization, f-element C-H activation and hydroelementation, organometallic chemistry (supported and not supported), methane oxidative coupling, light alkane oxidative dehydrogenation, biomass valorization, atomic layer deposition (ALD) precursor development, and friction/viscosity modifiers as lubricant additives.  

Tracy’s significant contributions to the field of organometallic, tandem, and heterogeneous catalysis has resulted in a total of 22 publications (13 first and 5 corresponding author), 6 invited presentations, 2 patent applications, and an independent grant (as sole PI) to work on bio-available alcohol oxidation. She is also the Vice President and Program Chair of the Chicago section of the North American Catalysis Society (NACS) for the 2017/2018 season.

Research Interests

Dr. Lohr’s primary research interests lie at the interface of organometallic and heterogeneous catalysis, with particular focus on the preparation of well-defined supported catalysts. Current topics of interest include olefin polymerization incorporating polar comonomers, light alkane oxidation and activation, alcohol oxidation, in operando studies of metal oxide catalysts, the design of new mixed metal oxide/carbon support materials, and enantioselective f-element catalysis.