Post Docs

Kristian Torbensen

Kristian Torbensen graduated as MSc. in surface electrochemistry from Aarhus University in 2011, and continued working there for two years as a research assistant. He then moved to Paris to obtain his PhD in physical chemistry at Université Pierre et Marie Curie. Soon after graduating in 2016, he continued his scientific career as a postdoctoral researcher at the “BIONANO” group at Laboratoire d’Electrochimie Moléculaire (LEM), Université de Paris, investigating electron transport at the nanoscale in catalytic biomacromolecular systems using AFM-SECM. In 2018, Kristian joined the “REACTE” group within the same laboratory, now as an industrial postdoctoral researcher in collaboration with Air Liquide, to set up a lab-scale test plant for the electrocatalytic CO2-to-CO conversion by implementing earth abundant metal-organic ligand molecular catalysts in a flow cell electrolyzer. In 2021 Kristian went back to Aarhus University to continue his work on CO2 electrolyzers for developing a chemically self-sustaining Martian society.

Kristian Birk Buhl
Kristian was born in 1989 in southern Jutland. He moved to Aarhus after high school and started his education at the department of Chemistry and the Engineering School in 2012. In 2015 he finished his bachelor in ‘’Chemistry and Technology’’ and started as a PhD student one year later. He is working on the MoAd project (Molecular adhesive) in collaboration with Radisurf. Former presented adhesive technologies are further developed and used in new applications. The project often use electrochemical reactions to modify surfaces, with different functionalities, before polymers are graft to or from the surfaces.

Monica Rohde Madsen

Monica was born in 1993 in Southern Jutland. After finishing high school in 2013, she moved to Aarhus to study chemistry. She received her bachelor’s degree in 2016 after working on a project involving bipolar electrochemistry. She continued the work on bipolar electrochemistry as a project student in the Organic Surface Chemistry Group, and started her PhD studies in 2017. Monica is now working on homogeneous catalysis in the electroreduction of CO2 with a special interest in Mn tricarbonyl complexes, which she studies using infrared spectroelectrochemistry.

Asger Holm Agergaard

Asger was born in Aarhus in 1993, and raised in Eastern Jutland. Twenty years later, he moved back to Aarhus, to study nanoscience at iNANO. After obtaining his Nanoscience bachelor’s degree in the field of DNA nanotechnology in 2016, his focus shifted to surface confined chemistry and electrochemistry – a perfect match with the Organic Surface Chemistry group! Asger carried out a chemical project in 2017, and continued to work on his Master’s in the group. After obtaining his Master’s degree in 2018, Asger began his PhD studies on polymer brushes and functional/responsive surfaces.

Simin Li

Simin was born in 1992 in Shandong Province, China. Before moving to Aarhus to pursue her PhD study, she finished her Bachelor and Master in “Chemistry & Chemical Engineering” at Central South University, Changsha. In 2018, Simin started her PhD in the group, where she works with electrochemical reduction of CO2 as a member of the CADIAC research center. Her current work is the heterogeneous catalysts, mainly the preparation of single atom catalysts, for the CO2 electroreduction.

PhD students

Siqi Zhao

Siqi was born in 1993 in Jilin, China. She started her education in Beijing University of Chemistry and Technology in 2011 and received her bachelor’s degree in 2015. She continued her study in Soochow University and worked on the project of CO2 reduction on carbon materials. After finishing her Master’s degree in 2018, she moved to Aarhus and started her PhD studies at Organic Surface Chemistry group in 2019. She is still working on electrochemical reduction of CO2 reduction but using Cu-organic molecular heterogeneous catalysts.

Jakob Pagh Nikolajsen

Jakob was born in North Jutland in 1995. He started his education at the iNANO center at Aarhus University in 2014. He got his bachelor’s degree in 2017 and his  master’s degree in 2019. In 2020 he started working as an industrial PhD together with RadiSurf and Aarhus University. His studies focus on surface-initiated polymerizations.

Wanwan Hong

Wanwan was born in 1995 in Henan Province, China. She started her education at Central South University, Changsha in 2013 and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 2017 and 2020. In 2020, Wanwan moved to Aarhus and started her PhD study as a member of Organic Surface Chemistry group. Now she is mainly working on homogeneous catalysts for CO₂ electroreduction, typically manganese tricarbonyl complexes.

Kirstine Nygaard Kolding

Kirstine was born in 1997 and spent most of her childhood in Skanderborg, a town in eastern Jutland. In 2014, she moved to Harrogate, England where she completed her A-levels, corresponding to a Danish upper secondary school exam. In 2017, she started studying chemistry at Aarhus University and in 2020 she received her bachelor’s degree after working on a project involving self-immolative polymers in the Organic Surface Chemistry Group. In 2021, she started as a PhD student working with electrochemical reduction of CO2 as part of the CADIAC research center. Her current work involves development of heterogenous copper-based catalysts that facilitate the reduction of CO2 to C2+ products such as ethylene and ethanol.

Marie Uth

Marie was born in Kolding in 1994 and moved to Aarhus in 2015 to study medicinal chemistry. She received her bachelor degree in medicinal chemistry in 2019 working on self immolative polymers with focus on monomer optimization. Followingly, she completed a chemical project on the same subject also including degradation kinetics. Currently, she is doing her masters with two projects running concurrently; a study on self-immolative properties in industrial plastics, and a study on determination of reaction mechanisms in CO2 reduction using gaussian frequency calculations.

Master students