PD Dr. Emiliana Fabbri

Emiliana Fabbri received her PhD in Materials Science from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy on December 2008. A significant part of her PhD studies were carried out in the group of Prof. E. Wachsman at the University of Florida, Gainesville USA.  In 2009 she was appointed as tenured scientist at the International Center for Material Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan. Emiliana Fabbri deeply investigated conduction mechanisms in solid state ionic conductors as well as electrochemical reactions related to fuel cells.  

Since January 2012, Emiliana Fabbri joined the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland working on materials for electrochemical energy storage and conversion, with emphasis on metal oxides. To gain a fundamental understanding of electrochemical reaction mechanisms and catalytic activity descriptors, she is particularly interested in the catalyst surface chemistry and electronic, local and crystal structure investigated by operando X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction, respectively. Since January 2024 she is co-leading the Electrocatalysis and Interface group at the Electrochemistry Laboratory of PSI.

Emiliana Fabbri is co-author of about 130 publications published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Chemistry, Chemical Society Review,  Advanced Energy Materials, Energy and Environmental Science,  JACS and Angewandte Chemie. She hold currently have an H-index of 54 from Scopus, with about 110 k citations (56 as h-index and 100 as h10-index from Google Scholar).

Emiliana Fabbri is currently teaching at at the University of Basel (Electrochemistry: Basics and Practice, course Nr. 64133-01, and Analytische Chemie I: Grundlagen der Strukturaufklärung, course Nr. 10854-01) and ETHZ (ETH Course Catalogue: 529-0507-00L)

Selected Publications

1. Huang, J., Clark, A.H., Hales, N. et al. Oxidation of interfacial cobalt controls the pH dependence of the oxygen evolution reaction. Nat. Chem. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-025-01784-1
2. Hales, N., Huang, J., Sjølin, B. H., Garcia-Padilla, A., Borca, C. N., Huthwelker, T., … Fabbri, E. (2025). Confining surface oxygen redox in double perovskites for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction activity and stability. Advanced Energy Materials, 2404560 (14 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202404560
3. Clark, A. H., Schmidt, T. J., & Fabbri, E. (2024). Best practices for operando hard X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Nature Sustainability, 7, 688-691. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01322-w
4. Huang, J., Hales, N., Clark, A. H., Yüzbasi, N. S., Borca, C. N., Huthwelker, T., … Fabbri, E. (2024). Operando tracking the interactions between CoO_x and CeO₂ during oxygen evolution reaction. Advanced Energy Materials, 14(11), 2303529 (10 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202303529
5. Huang, J., Borca, C. N., Huthwelker, T., Yüzbasi, N. S., Baster, D., El Kazzi, M., … Fabbri, E. (2024). Surface oxidation/spin state determines oxygen evolution reaction activity of cobalt-based catalysts in acidic environment. Nature Communications, 15(1), 3067 (9 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47409-y
6. Marelli, E., Gazquez, J., Poghosyan, E., Müller, E., Gawryluk, D. J., Pomjakushina, E., … Fabbri, E. (2021). Correlation between oxygen vacancies and oxygen evolution reaction activity for a model electrode: PrBaCo₂O_5+δ. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 60(26), 14609-14619. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202103151
7. Fabbri, E., Nachtegaal, M., Binninger, T., Cheng, X., Kim, B. J., Durst, J., … Schmidt, T. J. (2017). Dynamic surface self-reconstruction is the key of highly active perovskite nano-electrocatalysts for water splitting. Nature Materials, 16(9), 925-931. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4938

    

Major Awards

 -2020, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) PRIMA grant to support her research on "Materials developments for energy storage through water electrolysis: advanced characterization methods and new design principles for oxide electrocatalysts". 

-2020, Agility Plus grant associated with NCCR MARVEL as group leader in Design and Discovery Project 4.

-2014,  Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) AMBIZIONE grant.

-2012,  Kepler Prize of the European Academy of Sciences. This prize was awarded for her work in the field of “New nanomaterials in energy technology”.

-2011, Winner as co-author of the paper published on Nature Materials 9 (2010) 846-851 of the American Ceramic Society Ross Coffin Purdy Award.