Chemistry graduate student wins Fulbright Canada Scholarship

A PhD student researching safer, more powerful batteries is one of the first from the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Science to win a prestigious Fulbright Canada Student Award.

Alexandra Hankins, who recently completed her first year of studies in chemistry, has started her academic year on exchange at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

“When I got the email saying that I had been accepted for this year’s cohort, I was really shocked,” says Hankins, who recently completed her first year of study with Dr. Gabriel Ménard, PhD, in the Department of Chemistry.

“I’m super psyched to go to Harvard. I’ll be working with Dr. Ted Betley, who’s well known in the field.”

The Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the United States of America (a.k.a., Fulbright Canada) operates the Fulbright program in Canada, providing exchange opportunities for exceptional students, scholars and researchers in the two countries.

The program is a merit-based residential academic exchange program designed to promote mutual understanding, support academic excellence, and contribute to peace, prosperity and stability. The program is widely regarded as the gold standard in educational exchange and a powerful instrument of public diplomacy.

During her exchange, Hankins will study safer alternatives for long-term energy storage.

“I’m focusing on redox flow batteries, which are built differently than the kind of battery people are generally familiar with,” she says.

Commercial lithium-ion batteries store power in solid form, which allows them to be compact and lightweight. However, these batteries have a limited lifetime and can be flammable or explosive under certain conditions.

Redox flow batteries store their energy in a liquid solution, which is a safer option for long-term energy storage.

“The solutions we use in these batteries can store massive amounts of power, but they need to be kept in these huge tanks, which is challenging to find room for,” Hankins explains.

Hankins will work off existing research being done at Harvard, where she will study pre-existing molecules invented by the Betley Lab.

“He’s got these iron clusters that he’s very famous for, and some structures where he’s really focused on designing specific features into molecules, so they have certain properties. They’re very energetically active, which makes them good candidates for these battery systems,” she says. 

“It’s going to be a three-step process. First, I’ll make these molecules, then I’ll be testing whether they’ll be good candidates for this battery project, and if they are, I’ll be putting them into prototypes to see how they really work.”

Hankins will be spending eight months at Harvard, during which time she also hopes to train for — and run — the Boston Marathon.

“I’m a former varsity athlete in cross-country and track and field, and I guess I just don’t know when to stop!” she jokes. “I’m so eager to try to experience everything I possibly can.

“The Fulbright is something that I’ve been dreaming about for a while, ever since I heard about it for the first time. I knew early on that I wanted it to be part of my grad school journey.

“This year is looking very exciting for me, and I feel like all my hard work is coming to fruition.”