Kavita Kumar obtained her Ph.D. in Electrochemistry from the University of Poitiers (France) in 2017 under the direction of Prof. K. Boniface Kokoh, Dr. Têko W. Napporn and Dr. Aurélien Habrioux. During her Ph.D., she mostly focused on the preparation of transition metal oxides deposed onto graphene-based materials for catalyzing oxygen reduction and evolution reactions (ORR & OER) in alkaline media. Since 2018, she is post-doctoral research associate in the Interfacial Electrochemistry and Processes group of the LEPMI, Grenoble (France), headed by Dr. Frédéric Maillard. Her current research interests mostly lie on the structure-activity-stability relationships of platinum group metal-free catalysts for oxygen electrocatalysis.
Kavita will investigate the degradation of Fe-N-C electrocatalysts during the ORR in alkaline media using mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). A deeper understanding of the stability of Fe-N-C is important to develop mitigation strategies for sustainable energy devices.