FAQs

We are hiring a postdoctoral scholar at Harvard SEAS to work on electrochemically driven CO₂ capture. The project combines flow-cell electrochemistry, electrode and separator engineering, gas–liquid contact, UV-vis spectroscopy, EIS, and analytical chemistry. The postdoc will join Prof. Michael J. Aziz’s group and collaborate with Prof. Richard Liu’s group in Harvard CCB. Application review begins June 22, 2026.
Apply here: https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/16359

II’m pleased that you are interested in the important areas of research in which we are engaged and in the SEAS graduate program. I am no longer taking new graduate students into my own research group but I continue to collaborate with other faculty members and their PhD students so you should check them out:

Zachary Schiffer (SEAS), Richard Liu (Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and Dawei Xi (currently at UC Berkeley; joining SEAS some time in 2027).  

Please see also the following SEAS web pages:

http://www.seas.harvard.edu/audiences/prospective-graduates/

http://www.seas.harvard.edu/faculty-research/research

and

http://www.seas.harvard.edu/audiences/prospective-graduates/faqs/

Good luck with the application process!

Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) 
Undergraduates apply to the Harvard SEAS REU Program and indicate interest in several choices among a large number of positions. I usually post a position each year.

Other research opportunities for Harvard College students 
Harvard College undergraduates obtain support for summer or term-time research under the supervision of a faculty member such as myself under any of several programs, including:
Undergraduate Research and Fellowship (URAF) programs 

Research Experience for Course Credit
Of course there are non-job opportunities for guided research for course credit. Many departments offer a course such as Engineering Sciences 91r for students enrolled in Harvard College and I would be happy to discuss such opportunities with you before or at the beginning of the semester. 

We invite motivated undergraduate and graduate students with external funding to apply for visiting research opportunities. Ideal candidates should have prior experience in wet lab techniques, particularly in chemical or electrochemical methods, as the work will involve hands-on research in these areas. A minimum commitment of 5 months is required to ensure a meaningful and productive learning experience. Harvard University will require documentation that you will receive from your home institution at least $2920 per month to cover your living expenses.

My students are my highest priority.  But please realize that I cannot be pen pals in corresponding about the "rules of engagement" already stated in the syllabus, or homework problems, or the finer points of the course, due to this repetitive strain injury.  I seem to have only a limited number of keystrokes per day, and that number isn't known in advance.  So it's better to set up a Zoom call by email.  If you don't hear from me by the time you need to hear from me, please do not hesitate to contact me again.

I will do this when I can, but please keep in mind that Harvard hired me to do a job: teaching and research. I often go through periods in which it is hard to find enough hours in the week to fulfill my already-existing commitments.

Please email the title, authors, and if possible the abstract / project summary, and I'll let you know as soon as possible if I can review the manuscript / proposal.  If the request is from a journal I publish in or an organization I receive research funding from, I will try my hardest to find time.  Even then, however, my review inbox sometimes gets so backlogged that it's hopeless to add another, and in that case I believe it's better to say 'no' at the outset than to leave you and the author / principal investigator hanging for an unfairly long period of time.

The new email program seems to automatically control these much better than did the old. If it's still not good enough, try programming your spam filter to intercept a message from "Aziz" with "Automatic reply:" in the subject line. Even the new program won't permit me to customize the 'latency' (period for which the program won't send an additional bounce-back to the same address) so I'm still pretty much at its mercy. I'm really sorry about the trouble.