Contact
[email protected]
(734) 764-3627
Location
B28-2044W NCRC
2800 Plymouth Road, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-2800
Primary Website
Education
PhD Chemical Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, 2015
BS Chemical Engineering, University of California Riverside, 2010
Research Interests
Discovering improved catalysts and materials has never been more needed than today. The world is facing a growing population, mass consumerism, and rising greenhouse gas levels, all the while people strive to increase their standard of living. Computational modeling of catalysts and materials aids the process of designing systems because it provides a valuable way to test hypotheses and understand design criteria. The Goldsmith lab focuses on understanding catalytic systems and advanced materials for use in sustainable chemical production, pollution abatement, and energy storage & generation. They use atomistic modeling (e.g., density-functional theory), molecular simulation, and data science / ML tools to extract key insights into catalysts and materials, with the goal of creating a platform for their design. Current lab research thrusts include (i) Thermo-, electro-, and plasma-assisted catalysis for air and water pollution reduction and sustainable chemical conversion; (ii) Machine learning to accelerate catalyst and materials design; and (iii) redox flow battery chemistry for renewable energy storage.
Responsibilities
At Michigan
Faculty Advisor for AIChE Student Chapter (2020 – 2023)
Chemical Engineering Advisory Council Representative (2020 – 2023)
Graduate Curriculum Committee (Co-chair) (2018 – )
External
Journal of Catalysis, Early Career Editorial Board Member (2023 – )
President of Michigan Catalysis Society of the North American Catalysis Society (2022 – 2023)
Chem Catalysis, Journal Advisory Board Member (2020 – )
Biography
Professional Experience
University of Michigan
Department of Chemical Engineering
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Associate Professor, 9/2023 – Present
Dow Corning Assistant Professor, 1/2020 – 12/2022
Assistant Professor, 9/2017 – 9/2023
Affiliations:
Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering
Michigan Institute for Data Science
Michigan Catalysis Science and Technology Institute
Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society
Theory Department
Berlin, Germany
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2015 – 2017
Awards
NSF CAREER Award, 2023
1938E Award (University of Michigan College of Engineering), 2023
ACS OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, 2022
Featured as a “Movers & Shakers” in Catalysis, The Catalyst Review magazine, 2022
American Institute of Chemical Engineers 35 under 35 Award (Energy/Environment Category), 2020
ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator, 2020
Dow Corning Assistant Professorship in Chemical Engineering, 2020
U.S. Delegate to the 67th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on Chemistry, 2017
Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, 2016
Publications
Selected Recent Publications
* = corresponding author, ‡ = Goldsmith lab members, # = undergraduate author, ^ = equal contributions; & = co-advised
Electrocatalytic hydrogenation of phenol on platinum-cobalt alloys, J. Akinola^, I. Barth^,‡, B. R. Goldsmith*, N. Singh*, J. Catal. 115331 (2024). [doi] [60th Anniversary Issue]
Clarifying trust of materials property predictions using neural networks with distribution-specific uncertainty quantification, C. Gruich‡, V. Madhavan‡,#, Y. Wang, B. R. Goldsmith*, Mach. Learn.: Sci. Technol. 4, 025019 (2023). [doi]
Effects of ions on electrocatalytic hydrogenation and oxidation of organics in aqueous phase, A. Mathanker‡, W. Yu, N. Singh*, B. R. Goldsmith*, Curr. Opin. Electrochem. 101347 (2023). [doi]
Modeling plasma-induced surface charge effects on CO2 activation by single atom catalysts supported on reducible and irreducible metal oxides, F. Doherty‡, B. R. Goldsmith*, Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 32, 034004 (2023). [doi] [Special Issue]
Interpretable machine learning for knowledge generation in heterogeneous catalysis, J. A. Esterhuizen‡,&, B. R. Goldsmith*, S. Linic*, Nat. Catal. 5, 175 (2022). [doi]
Metal oxynitrides for the electrocatalytic reduction of nitrogen to ammonia, S. Young‡, B. Ceballos, A. Banerjee, R. Mukundan, G. Pilania*, B. R. Goldsmith*, J. Phys. Chem. C. 126, 12980 (2022). [ACS Editors’ Choice] [doi]
Explaining the structure sensitivity of Pt and Rh for aqueous-phase hydrogenation of phenol, I. Barth‡, J. Akinola, J. Lee#,‡, O. Y. Gutiérrez, U. Sanyal, N. Singh*, B. R. Goldsmith*, J. Chem. Phys. 156, 104703 (2022). [Emerging Investigator Special Issue] [doi]
Accelerating the structure search of catalysts with machine learning, E. Musa#,‡, F. Doherty‡, B. R. Goldsmith*, Curr. Opin. Chem. Eng. 35, 100771 (2022). [Invited opinion article] [doi]
Why halides enhance heterogeneous metal ion charge transfer reactions, J. Florian#,‡, H. Agarwal, N. Singh*, B. R. Goldsmith*, Chem. Sci. 12, 12704 (2021). [doi]
Uncovering electronic and geometric descriptors of chemical activity for metal alloys and oxides using unsupervised machine learning, J. A. Esterhuizen‡,&, B. R. Goldsmith*, S. Linic*, Chem Catalysis 1, 1 (2021). [doi]
Perovskite oxynitrides as tunable materials for electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction to ammonia, S. D. Young‡, A. Banerjee, G. Pilania*, B. R. Goldsmith*, Trends in Chemistry 3, 694 (2021) [Invited Forum Article]. [doi]
Rhodium single-atom catalysts on titania for reverse water gas shift reaction explored by first principles mechanistic analysis and compared to nanoclusters, F. Doherty‡, B. R. Goldsmith*, ChemCatChem 13, 3155 (2021). [doi]
Increasing electrocatalytic nitrate reduction activity by controlling adsorption through PtRu alloying, Z. Wang‡,&, S. D. Young‡, B. R. Goldsmith*, N. Singh*, J. Catal. 395, 143 (2021). [doi]
Theory-guided machine learning finds geometric structure-property relationships for chemisorption on subsurface alloys, J. Esterhuizen‡,&, B. R. Goldsmith*, S. Linic*, Chem 6, 1 (2020). [doi]
Nanocluster and single-atom catalysts for thermocatalytic conversion of CO and CO2, F. Doherty‡, H. Wang, M. Yang*, B. R. Goldsmith*, Catal. Sci. Technol. 10, 5772 (2020). [doi]
Adsorption energies of oxygenated aromatics and organics on rhodium and platinum in aqueous phase, J. Akinola, I. Barth‡, B. R. Goldsmith*, N. Singh*, ACS Catal. 10, 4929 (2020). [doi]
Role of electrocatalysis in the remediation of water pollutants, N. Singh*, B. R. Goldsmith*, ACS Catal. 10, 3365 (2020). [Invited Viewpoint] [doi]
Surpassing the single-atom catalytic activity limit through paired Pt-O-Pt ensemble built from isolated Pt1 atoms, H. Wang, J.-X. Liu‡, W. Li, L. F. Allard, S. Lee, J. Wang, H. Li, J. Wang, X. Cao, M. Shen*, B. R. Goldsmith*, M. Yang*, Nat. Commun. 10, 1 (2019). [doi]
Understanding activity and selectivity trends in electrocatalytic nitrate reduction, J.-X. Liu‡, D. Richards, N. Singh*, B. R. Goldsmith*, ACS Catal. 9, 7052 (2019). [doi]
Online full collection of our publications: