Shimshon Gottesfeld, an adjunct professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and a member of the Center for Catalytic Science and Technology at the University of Delaware, was the honoree at an invited symposium on advances and perspectives on modern polymer electrolyte fuel cells at the 235th Electrochemical Society Meeting, which was held from May 26 to 30, 2019, in Dallas. Sixty plus former and current colleagues, collaborators and friends from around the globe, including the current and former officials of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) Fuel Cell Technologies Office, came to recognize and honor the pioneering contributions that Gottesfeld has made during the past 35 years.
The Journal of the Electrochemical Society also published a special issue in his honor. Among those who co-organized the symposium and co-edited the special issue was UD’s Yushan Yan, Henry B. du Pont Chair of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. Yan and Gottesfeld co-developed the Electrochemical Energy Engineering course (CHEG 632) at UD in 2015. They have been collaborators on an Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Refuel Project on direct ammonia fuel cells and recently received another ARPA-E grant of nearly $2 million to build a hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cell system that will be CO2 tolerant and cheaper than existing fuel cell systems.
Photograph by Evan Krape. Shimshon Gottesfeld is pictured in the center. To his left is postdoctoral associate Brian P. Setzler; to his right is Yushan Yan.