Iryna Zenyuk Wins Prestigious Humboldt Award
July 9, 2026 - UC Irvine chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Iryna Zenyuk has been awarded the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. The award honors researchers who received their doctorate within the past 18 years for their scientific achievements and excellence. It includes an endowment of €60,000 and a research stay in Germany. Zenyuk is the first UCI engineering professor to be recognized with this prestigious award.
“Professor Iryna Zenyuk is an international authority in electrochemical energy systems, pioneering advanced imaging and modeling techniques to study fuel cells, electrolyzers, and batteries across multiple scales. Her research has revealed critical transport and degradation mechanisms governing hydrogen and clean energy,” said Professor Karl Mayrhofer, director of the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nuremberg for Renewable Energies (HI ERN), a global leader in electrochemical technologies. “In Germany, she continues to advance sustainable energy technology research utilizing unique in-situ/operando electrochemical methods. We are very much looking forward to the intensification of our collaboration in the framework of her sabbatical at HI ERN.”
Zenyuk, who is also director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center and co-director of the UCI Engineering+ Sustainability Institute, has been collaborating with HI ERN and German research groups for over the past five years. Zenyuk will stay in Germany for the coming fall and spring quarters. During her sabbatical, she plans to work with German researchers at Hi ERN to advance understanding of catalyst degradation phenomena in water electrolyzers and fuel cells, resolving how local environment and realistic operating conditions drive catalyst dissolution and loss. This work will inform design strategies for more stable catalysts, enabling devices capable of sustained field operation for up to 20 years.
“I'm grateful to the Humboldt Foundation for this award through which I can further build joint research programs with some of the best laboratories in Germany and to further advance science and engineering of electrochemical systems,” Zenyuk said. “There has been a lot of investment in hydrogen and electrochemical engineering by the German government. It is good to see many of the European projects coming to fruition in Germany.”
During her stay, she will also be speaking at institutes throughout Europe, visiting deployment sites to view the newest electrochemical technology and involving her students in this collaboration. UCI students will be able to interact through on-site visits, Zoom meetings and potential postdoctoral fellowships. Next summer, Zenyuk will also spend a month at The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin.
- Natalie Tso
