Emily A. Carter

About

Emily A. Carter is the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment and a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. She is also affiliated with the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and Applied and Computational Mathematics. Since joining Princeton in 2004, she has developed a distinguished career in physical chemistry, focusing on the development and application of quantum mechanical simulation techniques to enable the discovery and design of materials for sustainable production of fuels, chemicals, and materials. Her research supports the creation of innovative solutions to global challenges related to energy and the environment. Dr. Carter has held numerous leadership roles, including founding director of Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and senior strategic advisor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Her work at PPPL since 2022 involves diversifying research into electromanufacturing, solar radiation management, microelectronics, and quantum information science. She has an extensive publication record with over 475 publications and patents, and her contributions have been recognized through election to prestigious academies such as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society. Her academic background includes a B.S. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in…

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Computer Science
• Optoelectronics
• Organic chemistry
• Mathematics
• Engineering
• Computational chemistry
• Nanotechnology
• Engineering physics

Selected publications

• Light-driven methane dry reforming with single atomic site antenna-reactor plasmonic photocatalysts

  Nature Energy · 2020 · 758 citations

  DOI

• Earth-abundant photocatalyst for H ₂ generation from NH ₃ with light-emitting diode illumination

  Science · 2022 · 261 citations

  Catalysts based on platinum group metals have been a major focus of the chemical industry for decades. We show that plasmonic photocatalysis can transform a thermally unreactive, earth-abundant transition metal into a catalytically active site under illumination. Fe active sites in a Cu-Fe antenna-reactor complex achieve efficiencies very similar to Ru for the photocatalytic decomposition of ammonia under ultrafast pulsed illumination. When illuminated with light-emitting diodes rather than lase…

  DOI

• DFT exchange: sharing perspectives on the workhorse of quantum chemistry and materials science

  Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics · 2022 · 260 citations

  In this paper, the history, present status, and future of density-functional theory (DFT) is informally reviewed and discussed by 70 workers in the field, including molecular scientists, materials scientists, method developers and practitioners. The format of the paper is that of a roundtable discussion, in which the participants express and exchange views on DFT in the form of 302 individual contributions, formulated as responses to a preset list of 26 questions. Supported by a bibliography of…

  DOI

• Facet-Independent Oxygen Evolution Activity of Pure β-NiOOH: Different Chemistries Leading to Similar Overpotentials

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2020 · 184 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  2019 , 141 , 1 , 693 - 705 . This finding shows that all of the low-index facets investigated so far could be responsible for the experimentally observed OER activity of pristine β-NiOOH. However, the lowest overpotential active sites on these three crystallographic facets operate via different mechanisms, underscoring the importance of considering multiple OER pathways and intermediates on each crystallographic facet of a potential electrocatalyst. Specifically, our work demonstrates that consi…

  DOI

• Hot carrier multiplication in plasmonic photocatalysis

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021 · 82 citations

  Significance Photochemical processes on the surfaces of illuminated metallic nanoparticles have shown outstanding efficiencies and may provide new, light-based strategies for inducing chemical transformations that consume far less energy than do conventional heat-driven catalysts. Energetic, or “hot” electrons, play an important role in these types of processes, although their short lifetime has made this interpretation somewhat controversial. In this work, we report a photochemical reaction wit…

  DOI

Recent grants

• Linear Scaling Electronic Structure Methods for Molecules and Materials

  NSF · $600k · 2009–2013

• CDS&E: Correlated Wavefunction Methods for Gas and Condensed Phases

  NSF · $420k · 2013–2018

• Linear Scaling Electronic Structure Methods for Molecules and Materials

  NSF · $420k · 2005–2009

Frequent coauthors

• William C. Chueh

  2921 shared

• Robert H. Socolow

  2918 shared

• S. Sampath

  Arunai Engineering College

  2916 shared

• Kate Bandoo

  Imperial College London

  2916 shared

• Sam Keltie

  University of Twente

  2916 shared

• Dirk M. Guldi

  Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

  2916 shared

• Yan Yu

  Princeton University

  2916 shared

• Molina Santos

  Aarhus University

  2916 shared

Education

• Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry

  University of Colorado

  1988

• PHD, Chemistry

  California Institute of Technology

  1987

• BS, Chemistry

  University of California Berkeley

  1982

Awards & honors

• Election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
• Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Election to the U.S. National Academy of Inventors
• Election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering
• Election to the European Academy of Sciences

Similar researchers at Princeton University

• Yiguang Juh-80
• Jesse Jenkinsh-40
• Mikko Haatajah-40