Niklas graduated from Caltech with a PhD in chemistry. As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago he studied chemistry and mathematics, earning Bachelor of Science degrees in both fields. At Chicago, Niklas investigated the coordination chemistry of palladium with bulky N-heterocyclic carbene ligands in the Hillhouse group, with the aim of stabilizing unusual bonding motifs relevant to catalysis. At Caltech, Niklas researched the mechanism of the fixation of dinitrogen to ammonia catalyzed by iron complexes. The fixation of nitrogen is a process essential to all life, and is currently practiced on an enormous scale industrially. Understanding how to catalyze this reaction under mild conditions with earth-abundant materials constitutes an important step in developing a sustainable method for the synthesis of ammonia for the purpose of fertilizer production.
In 2015, Niklas won the Dow-SISCA Grand Prize along with Trevor Del Castillo for the project, "Toward Sustainable Nitrogen Fixation: Developing Fe-catalysts for Direct N2 to NH3 Conversion".
Nik is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at MIT.
RSI Research: Toward Sustainable Nitrogen Fixation: Elucidating the Mechanism of Nitrogen Reduction by Molecular Catalysts
