Exploring the Complex Structural Landscape and Potential Applications of Rare-Earth Metal–Organic Frameworks
On November 17th, 2022, WICTO had the great pleasure of hosting Prof. Ashlee Howarth from Concordia University as part of WICTO’s Seminar Series. Her talk highlighted her group’s research on rare-earth metal-organic frameworks and their potential applications in pollution remediation, catalysis, and chemical sensing. We were delighted to see a great number of graduate students and faculty members attend our first in-person seminar after the long, challenging period of the pandemic.
Ashlee J. Howarth is an assistant professor and Concordia University Research Chair at Concordia University in Montréal. She was born and raised in London, Ontario. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario in 2009, and then went on to do her PhD in inorganic materials chemistry at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Michael O. Wolf. Before joining the faculty at Concordia, she completed an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University with Joseph T. Hupp and Omar K. Farha. In 2018, Ashlee was recognized by Forbes Magazine as a “30 under 30” in Science for her contributions to research in the field of wastewater treatment, and the detoxification of chemical warfare agents.
In her talk, Ashlee focused on her current group’s projects in the design and synthesis of novel metal–organic frameworks composed of rare-earth ions, including Y(III), Sc(III), and the series of fifteen lanthanoids (Ln(III)). Due to the high and variable coordination numbers of these rare-earth ions, they allow for the construction of unique and intricate topologies of the metal-organic frameworks for many potential applications, including gas storage and release, pollution remediation, catalysis, drug delivery, X-ray detection, bioimaging, and chemical sensing.
In addition to her fantastic talk, Ashlee shared her insights and personal research experience with 12 graduate students at a roundtable discussion following her presentation. We had a great discussion on current research being carried out at U of T, what makes research challenging, and future career possibilities.
In all, we thank Ashlee for her insightful talk and for sharing her experience in this year’s seminar series. We hope everyone enjoyed it!
Contributed by Tianyi (Taylor) Wu
