Polsky Research Fellow, 2025 and 2026. Mentor: Anna Wuttig, Assistant Professor, Chemistry
Caroline Hou is a student in the class of 2027 majoring in Chemistry. Her strong interest in catalyst and energy research has inspired her previous research on photocatalysis for carbon dioxide reduction and noble active electrode materials for sodium batteries. She has participated in the Institute’s Polsky Research Fellows program in summer 2025 and 2026.
Caroline currently works in Anna Wuttig’s lab to pursue her interest in investigating how electrochemical properties can be modified through the microenvironment of the electrolyte-electrode interface. Specifically, she studies the non-covalent self-assembly of redox-active small molecules, aiming to apply the system to semiconductor electrode surfaces to extend our understanding of the behavior of self-assembly layers to a photoelectrocatalysis model.
“I think one of my major successes I had during my time as a Fellow was to obtain a greater understanding of semiconductors as an electrode material. The full-time summer working schedule enabled me to spend time studying the textbook and literature knowledge of this field, which was fully new to me, while doing the experimental study in the lab. The time and resources allowed me to develop the understanding that further supports my experiment design and analysis to be more logical.”