Author: Yu-Wen Chen

Zhen Ma was born in Shanghai in November of 1976. He enrolled as a chemistry student at Fudan University in 1994. In route to earning a BS in chemistry, Zhen carried out research on catalysis of mesoporous silica-supported heteropolyacids under the direction of Prof. Zi Gao. After graduating in 1998, Zhen became an MSc student in the same university to study the preparation and environmental catalysis (Freon decomposition) of novel solid strong acids under Prof. Zi Gao. There he earned an MS degree in chemistry in 2001. Subsequently, he moved to University of California, Riverside and studied in situ spectroscopic characterization of liquid-solid interfaces of catalysis relevance with Prof. Francisco Zaera, and earned a Ph D degree in chemistry in 2006. He then moved to Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a postdoc and studied environmental catalysis (CO oxidation and water-gas shift) using gold catalysts with Dr. Sheng Dai. He stared as an Associate Professor at Fudan University in December of 2009. Currently, his research interest is still on environmental catalysis by gold catalysts and other nanomaterials.