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The TomZiegler Award is presented in honour of Prof. Tom Ziegler (1945-2015) to a scientist residing in Canada who has made an outstanding early-career contribution to theoretical and/or computational chemistry.
View the Terms of Reference and list of Past Winners
The 2023 winner of the Tom Ziegler Award is:
Samira Siahrostami, MCIC
University of Calgary
Dr. Samira Siahrostami is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Calgary, Canada. Prior to that, she worked as a research engineer (2016–2018) and postdoctoral researcher (2014–2016) at Stanford University’s Department of Chemical Engineering. She also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Denmark from 2011 to 2013. Her work focuses on modelling reactions at (electro)catalyst surfaces using computational techniques such as density functional theory. Her goal is to develop more efficeint catalysts for fuel cells, electrolyzers, and batteries by comprehending the kinetics and thermodynamics of reactions occurring at the surface of (electro)catalysts. Dr. Siahrostami has written more than 90 peer-reviewed articles with an h-index of 43 and over 10,000 citations to date. She has received numerous invitations to give talks at universities, conferences, and workshops around the world on a variety of topics related to catalysis science and technology. Dr. Siahrostami is the recipient of Environmental, Sustainability and Energy Division Horizon Prize: John Jeyes Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in 2021. She has been named as an emerging investigator by the RSC in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Dr. Siahrostami’s contribution to energy research was recognized in the most recent Virtual Issue of ACS Energy Letters as one of the Women at the forefront of energy research in 2023. She is currently the board member of the Canadian Catalysis Foundation and editor of Chemical Engineering Journal (CEJ) and APL Energy journal (AIP Publishing).