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Enrique Contreras
Contact
Bio
Enrique Contreras is an Assistant Professor at California State University, San Bernardino. He completed his postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the mentorship of Prof. Prashant K. Jain. His work focused on developing plasmonic materials for energy upconversion by coupling visible light and voltage bias, significantly advancing the field of plasmon-assisted electrochemistry.
Dr. Contreras earned his Ph.D. in Nanoscience from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education under the mentorship of Prof. Jose M. Romo-Herrera. He has published extensively on the synthesis of carbonaceous nanomaterials for fuel cell applications in leading journals, including Advanced Energy Materials, Nanoscale, and Carbon. Additionally, he has made significant contributions to plasmon-assisted electrochemistry for molecular upconversion and energy extraction, with articles appearing in Journal of the American Chemical Society, Trends in Chemistry, and ACS Applied Energy Materials.
As an active reviewer for journals such as ACS Nano, Microchimica Acta, and International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Dr. Contreras continues to engage with the broader scientific community. His current research interests include the engineering and development of plasmonic gas-diffusion electrodes, cleaning nitrate-polluted surface water in the Cali-Baja region, and creating plasmonic, earth-abundant catalyst nanomaterials for energy storage and fuel cell applications.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YOVd55YAAAAJ&hl=es&oi=ao
Education
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, 2020-2024
- National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) / Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education (CICESE), PhD in Nanoscience, 2015-2019
- National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) / Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education (CICESE), MSc Physics of Materials, 2013-2015
Research and Teaching Interests
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