Alexander G. Agrios, PhD, PE
Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Academic Preparation
- B.S.E. (Civil & Environmental Engineering; Chemistry; Duke University, Durham, NC, USA) 1996
- M.S. (Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., USA) 1998
- Ph.D. (Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., USA) 2003
Postdoctoral Experience
- École Centrale de Lyon, France, Photocatalyse et environnement, with Prof. Pierre Pichat, 2004
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (EPFL), Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces, with Prof. Michael Grätzel 2004-2005
- KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, and Uppsala University, Sweden, Physical Chemistry, with Prof. Anders Hagfeldt, 2005-2009
Biosketch
A passion for mitigating mankind’s impact on the natural environment and a fascination with chemistry led me to combine Environmental Engineering with Chemistry from the beginning of my studies. I earned a BSE from Duke University in 1996 with majors in both Civil & Environmental Engineering and Chemistry. My graduate work, under Prof. Kimberly A. Gray at Northwestern University, concerned interactions between visible light, chlorophenols, and TiO2 nanoparticles in the context of environmental photocatalysis. I conducted further work in photocatalysis during a short-term postdoctoral position with Prof. Pierre Pichat at École Centrale de Lyon, France.
At some point during my graduate studies I was bitten by the “energy bug”: I became convinced that energy production lay at the root of a large proportion of the pollution that we environmental engineers endeavor to mitigate, and that developing clean energy technologies could have far greater environmental impact than improved treatment methods. When I learned that a type of solar cell existed based on excitation by visible light of molecules adsorbed to TiO2 nanoparticles, I was immediately intrigued. I moved into research on the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) during postdoctoral studies with Prof. Michael Grätzel at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland and with Prof. Anders Hagfeldt in Sweden, first at KTH in Stockholm and later at Uppsala University. In August 2009, I joined UConn as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and the Center for Clean Energy Engineering. I became Associate Professor in 2016.
Research Interests
Research in my group draws on electrochemistry, materials synthesis and characterization, and often interactions with light (especially sunlight) to improve sustainability via renewable energy generation and storage, decarbonization, and removal or destruction of pollutants.