Rate My Professor Corina Andronescu

Corina Andronescu serves as W2 Professor for Electrochemical Catalysis in the Faculty of Chemistry at Universität Duisburg-Essen, leading the Technical Chemistry III group. She completed her Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering in 2009, Master's degree in 2011, and PhD in 2014 at the University Politehnica of Bucharest. Her professional journey includes roles as teaching assistant from 2011 to 2014 and lecturer from 2014 to 2016 at the University Politehnica of Bucharest, followed by a postdoctoral position from 2016 to 2017 and group leader role in 2018 at Ruhr-University Bochum. Appointed as W1 Junior Professor at Universität Duisburg-Essen in December 2018, she held this position until February 2024 before her promotion to W2 Professor in March 2024. Andronescu's research centers on electrochemical catalysis, with a focus on developing stable, high-performance electrocatalysts for sustainable energy conversion processes. This includes the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to valuable fuels such as methanol and electrocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen production. Her innovative approaches involve embedding nanoparticles in carbon lattice structures to ensure long-term stability and electrical conductivity.

Andronescu has received numerous prestigious awards recognizing her contributions to the field, including the Dozentenpreis of the Chemical Industry Fund (FCI) in 2025, the Carl-Duisberg Memorial Award from the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) in 2024, the Jochen Block Preis from DECHEMA in 2023, membership in the Junge Kolleg of the Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste from 2023 to 2024, the Joachim Walter Schultze Preis der AGEF in 2022, and the Gottschalk-Diederich-Baedeker-Preis in 2022. Earlier honors include the Ad Astra Prize for excellence in research in 2018 and the RUB Inventor Award in 2017 for self-healing electrocatalyst films. Her prolific publication record features works such as 'Impact of the Gas Atmosphere in the Triple Boundary Phase on the Measured Local Oxygen Evolution Reaction Electrocatalytic Activity' in Small Methods (2025), 'Laser-induced iron doping of spinel thin film electrocatalyst: Impact of pulsed laser processing on lateral cobalt oxide doping and oxygen evolution reaction activity' in ChemCatChem (2025), 'CO2RR calibration for high current densities' in Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research (2025), and 'Intrinsically Conductive and Cu-Functionalized Polymer-Composite Membranes as Gas Diffusion Electrodes for CO2 Electroreduction' in ChemSusChem (2025). She holds patents, including self-assembling and self-healing nanoparticle-based catalyst films for alkaline electrolysers, and serves in leadership roles such as spokesperson for Water2H2 and deputy spokesperson for Active Sites.