UVA Chemical Engineering Chair Wins 2026 ACS Lectureship for Groundbreaking Catalysis Research

Ayman Karim, chair of the University of Virginia's Department of Chemical Engineering, has received the 2026 ACS Catalysis Lectureship for the Advancement of Catalytic Science in Heterogeneous Catalysis for research that sheds new light on one of chemistry's enduring mysteries: exactly how some catalysts work.

In a 2023 paper, Karim and Hongliang Xin, a professor of chemical engineering at Virginia Tech, managed to break down some of the steps that happen to make heterogeneous catalytic transformations possible. The research captures snapshots of several parts of the reaction cycle to understand the reaction mechanism, showing how a metal atom dynamically changes its coordination to enable the oxidation of CO to CO2 and identifying specific intermediate states along the reaction cycle.

The research was funded by the U.S. Army Research Office to advance catalysis science — fundamental knowledge that could, for example, help protect soldiers from exposure to chemical warfare agents.

The article won the 2026 ACS Catalysis Lectureship award, which recognizes researchers with recent, significant publications in ACS Catalysis, a journal of the American Chemical Society. This year's winners were picked from "groundbreaking" research published in the journal over the past three years.

Karim said he feels honored to be recognized alongside pioneers in his field. Their research, by being able to capture multiple "frames," or steps, of the reaction cycle, effectively transcended the field of heterogeneous catalysis. The work achieved something very difficult in heterogeneous catalysis that's typically reserved to homogeneous catalysis — specifically, identifying the exact nature of the active site and showing that it contains specific ligands that participate in the reaction, with some acting as spectators.

Karim and Xin described their research as designing better "chemical matchmakers" — materials that help molecules react faster, more selectively and with less waste. Their research is fueled by a desire to better understand catalytic behavior through electronic structure, local chemical environment, and their effect on reaction pathways and rates.

The biggest challenge is that real-world catalysts are dynamic: the active site can change with temperature, pressure, reactant composition and the surrounding support environment. A very small change at the atomic scale can completely change the outcome of a chemical reaction. Solving that challenge with multimodal operando characterization techniques and detailed kinetic studies to enable high-fidelity AI and machine learning is exactly what will unlock the next wave of progress in heterogeneous catalysis.

Karim and Xin will be honored for their work during ACS Fall 2026 in August in Chicago.