Dr. Plamen Atanassov Appointed Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE)

Dr. Plamen Atanassov

Pajarito Powder Technical Advisory Board Member Prof. Plamen Atanassov has been selected as a Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) in recognition of his contributions to bioelectrochemistry and materials electrochemistry for energy conversion and storage. The honor acknowledges Dr. Atanassov’s body of work in the development of Platinum Group Metals-free (PGM-free) catalysts for low temperature alkaline exchange membrane (AEM) and proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells.

Dr. Atanassov began his career while completing his PhD in Sofia at the (now) Budevski Institute of Electrochemistry and Power Systems, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He moved to the United States in 1992 and joined the University of New Mexico (UNM), rising to the rank of Distinguished Professor.  He established and was the first Director of the UNM School of Engineering (SOE) Center for Emerging Energy Technologies, he became SOE Associate Dean for Research and later Director of the UNM Center for Micro-Engineered Materials.  In 2018 Dr. Atanassov moved to University of California, Irvine, where he is Chancellor’s Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering and Chemistry.

Dr. Atanassov credits many people from his past and present for his success. He stated, “I am blessed to have worked with so many amazing people at many different stages of my career – too numerous to mention,” but added that Pajarito Powder “reserves a special place, as two of those people are in leadership positions at Pajarito: CTO Barr Zulevi and Chief Scientist Alexey Serov, whom contributed greatly to the work on PGM-free materials that are being acknowledged by this honor. Additionally, my colleague and long-time collaborator Prof. Sanjeev Mukerjee of Northeastern University and I are fellows of both the Electrochemical Society (ECS) and International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), and along with four amazing colleagues, we are Technical Advisory Board (TAB) members of Pajarito Powder: Dr. Piotr Zelenay of Los Alamos National Laboratory (ECS Fellow), Prof. Scott Calabrese Barton of Michigan State University, Dr. Jean Pol Dodelet from the Canadian L’Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique and Prof. Hubert Gasteiger from the Technical University of Munich (ECS Fellow). This TAB is literally a “who’s-who” in the world of PGM-free electrocatalysts. This gives tremendous advantage to Pajarito Powder to be a ‘power house’ for fuel cell catalysts technology.”

Based in Switzerland, the ISE is a global scientific society with the goal of disseminating scientific and technical knowledge for the advancement of electrochemical science and technology.  The organization’s executive committee bestows the honor of ISE Fellow upon three to four new fellows each year, from different regions of the world and different branches of electrochemistry, as selected by a Fellows Nominating Committee and in consultation with the Council.

Dr. Atanassov went on to add that it is a profound honor to be among a world-wide group of almost 100 ISE Fellows who are well-known authorities to every student of electrochemistry.

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