People

Kirsten Marie Ørnsbjerg Jensen

Kirsten is an associate professor at University of Copenhagen, where she started our group in October 2015. She did her undergraduate and PhD studies at Aarhus University, where she worked in Bo B. Iversen’s group in the Center for Materials Crystallography. Following her PhD, Kirsten did postdoctoral work at Columbia University in New York in Simon J. L. Billinge’s group, using total scattering and PDF to study the structure of nanomaterials. Kirsten is leading the Nanostructure group at University of Copenhagen, focusing on mapping the relation between nanomaterial synthesis, structure and properties.

Follow Kirsten here:
Google Scholar
ResearcherID: I-9367-2012
ORCID: 0000-0003-0291-217X

Postdocs:

Andrea Kirsch
anki(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0003-2602-7415
Andrea did her PhD at the University of Bremen, Germany, where she worked on the synthesis, structure, and properties of bismuth iron oxides. After graduating in 2018, she held a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Research Foundation to work with our group. She joined in November 2019 and uses neutron and X-ray scattering techniques with subsequent Rietveld and PDF analysis for formation studies of complex oxides, e.g., high-entropy and quantum materials.

Adam Sapnik
afs(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0001-6200-4208
Adam received his MChem degree in Chemistry in 2018 from the University of Oxford. He then completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. His PhD focused on the atomic structure, physical properties and formation mechanisms of amorphous metal–organic frameworks and involved using several scattering, spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. In December 2022, Adam joined our group and will investigate the formation of metal oxide clusters in solution.

Maria Storm Thomsen
mst(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0001-9384-5827
Maria finished her PhD from the University of Copenhagen in May 2022 under the supervision of Thomas Just Sørensen, where she worked on structural and spectroscopic characterization of lanthanide complexes. Maria joined our group in June 2022 and focuses on the formation process of molybdenum oxide nanoparticles using PDF analysis.

Rebecca Pittkowski
rebecca.pittkowski(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0002-0351-4993
Rebecca is a postdoc who joined our group in August 2021. Rebecca finished her PhD in December 2020 at the J. Heyrovský Institute in Prague, where she worked on the development and testing of novel oxygen-evolving electrocatalysts. After graduation, she joined CHEAC and the group of Matthias Arenz in Bern for a 6-month stay before moving to Copenhagen. Here, she works on the synthesis of high entropy alloy nanoparticle electrocatalysts and their structural characterization through X-ray scattering and X-ray absorption methods. Rebecca also applies these techniques in operando studies, which allow her to follow structural changes of nanoparticles during electrocatalysis.

Adrián Sanz Arjona
asa(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0003-3208-5929
Adrián joined our group as a postdoc in May 2022 after completing his PhD at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. During his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Peter Dunne, his research was focused on the hydrothermal synthesis of various minerals and the structural characterisation for controlling material characteristics under various synthetic conditions. Once he joined our group, he started investigating the synthesis and characterisation of amorphous oxides for applications in several fields, such as electrocatalysis. His project requires, among others, the use of X-ray diffraction methods, PDF analysis and spectroscopic characterisation of the targeted materials.

PhD students:

Andy Sode Anker
andy(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0002-7403-6642
Andy started his MSc+PhD program in our group in September 2018 but has already been working with our group since his undergraduate studies. Initially, he applied combined PDF and SAXS modelling to understand how metal oxido clusters form in solution. In recent years, however, his scientific interests shifted towards machine learning based modelling of scattering data.

Olivia Aalling-Frederiksen
oaf(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0003-1462-7173
Olivia is on the integrated MSc+PhD program, which she started in September 2019. Her research focusses on the synthesis and structural characterization of disordered oxide materials, including niobium oxides, as well as nickel/cobalt/iron oxides for catalysis.

Laura Susanne Junkers
lsj(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0002-5839-2997
Laura studied chemistry at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the University of Helsinki, focussing on inorganic and theoretical materials chemistry. She moved to Copenhagen to conduct her MSc project in our group and subsequently started her PhD studies in February 2022. Laura investigates the solvothermal formation of ternary oxide materials with special emphasis on when and how the mixing of metals takes place.

Emil Thyge Skaaning Kjaer
etsk(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0002-0298-6016
Emil started his PhD in September 2019 but had been working with the group as part of both his BSc and MSc project. Emil works on automating data treatment and especially PDF modelling for in situ studies.

Jens Edelvang-Pejrup
jep(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0002-2385-0396
Jens did his BSc project in our group investigating the relationship between synthesis and structure of layered double hydroxides. He has been enrolled in the integrated MSc+PhD program since February 2022 and works on the development of novel high entropy oxides based on earth-abundant elements. His focus lies on their application as catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction. By combining several experimental approaches, he aims to relate the electrochemical properties of these materials to their atomic scale structure.

Tobias Mølgaard Nielsen
tmn(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0002-5976-9928
Tobias joined our group during his undergraduate studies and conducted a project on the synthesis of manganese dioxide polymorphs. For his BSc project he investigated the effect of synthesis parameters on the synthesis of spinel-type nickel iron oxide. In September 2020 he started his integrated MSc+PhD as a part of the Center for High Entropy Alloy Catalysis, where he is currently mapping synthesis methods for high entropy alloys, as well as studying their formation mechanisms.

Stefanie Punke
spu@chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0001-9896-6265
Stefanie did her bachelor in physics at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the University of Bergen in Norway. After moving to Copenhagen for her master in nanoscience, she joined our and Matthias Arenz’ group for her integrated MSc+PhD program in September 2022. Studying electrocatalytic processes in operando using X-ray scattering techniques is her main focus.

Nicolas Magnard
nima(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0001-7213-388X
Nicolas’ background is in materials science and engineering. He did his joint engineering and master’s degree at Université de Limoges, France, and has done research projects at both Université de Limoges and Uppsala University. Nicolas works on understanding material formation by studying polymorphism in oxide materials.

Ulrik Friis-Jensen
ufj(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0001-6154-1167
Ulrik’s expertise links nanoscience with data science and machine learning. His MSc project in our group began in August 2021 and is now continued in his PhD studies. Ulrik develops generative machine learning models, aiming to characterize metal oxide nanoparticles.

Laura Glei Graversen
lgg(at)chem.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0002-5964-7744
Laura began working with our group in February 2021 for her BSc project and is now enrolled in the integrated MSc+PhD program to study the formation of niobium-, molybdenum-, and tungsten oxide nanoparticles. She focusses especially on how the employed solvent influences particle size and structure.

Frederik Lizak Johansen
frjo(at)di.ku.dk
ORCID: 0000-0002-8049-8624
Frederik’s background is in computational physics and data science. He joined our group for his MSc project in August 2021 and is now closely collaborating with us as part of his PhD at DIKU. Frederik is working on implementing Reinforcement Learning into the characterization of nanostructures from Pair Distribution Function data.

Alumni from the group:

Baiyu Wang – PhD, Graduated 2023
Mikkel Juelsholt – PhD, Graduated 2021
Susan Cooper – Postdoc until 2021
Susanne Linn Skjærvø – Postdoc until 2021
Jette Katja Mathiesen – PhD, Graduated 2021
Jonathan Quinson – Postdoc until 2020, now leads his own group
Troels Lindahl Christiansen – PhD, Graduated 2019

Rebecca Svart Silberg – BSc, Graduated 2022
Mathias Tegtmeier – BSc, Graduated 2022
Ida Kær Mønge – BSc, Graduated 2022
Nanna Lærke Baun – BSc, Graduated 2021
Marc Cloos Videbæk – BSc, Graduated 2021
Marcus Weng Nørgård – BSc, Graduated 2021
Ida Nielsen – MSc, Graduated 2021
Magnus Wied – MSc, Graduated 2021
Joakim Lajer – BSc, Graduated 2021
Nikolaj Anderson – BSc, Graduated 2021
Caroline Tynell Hansen – BSc, Graduated 2021
Laura Olivia Dalskov Frederiksen – MSc, Graduated 2020
Sultan Jusupov – BSc, Graduated 2019
Rebecca Baskaran – BSc, Graduated 2019
Elly Kim Bathke – MSc, Graduated 2018
Triana Wulandari – MSc, Graduated 2018
Joanna Symnowicz – MSc, Graduated 2018
Emil Rössing Elholm – MSc, Graduated 2017
Christina Basse Riel – BSc, Graduated 2017
Mathias Helmsøe-Zinck – BSc, Graduated 2016

Visitors to the group:

We’re happy to have hosted visitors to the group:

Susan Cooper, at the time graduate student in Jim Hutchison’s group at University of Oregon, was with us for in total 6 months during 2016 and 2017, before joining us for her postdoc.

Christoph Findler, at the time master student in Dorota Koziej’s group at ETH Zurich, visited the group to use PDF to study the formation of metal oxides.