Amra Peles

Amra Peles 
Adjunct Professor 
Ph. D., University of Manitoba, Canada (2003)

Department of Materials Science & Engineering
97 North Eagleville Road, Unit 3136
Storrs, CT 06269-3136
Office: IMS-111
Phone: (860) 486-4620

Research Interests

Technology focused development of advanced functional materials and materials informatics: 

• Electronic structure first principles methods and models 
• Density functional theory 
• Integrated multi-scale modeling for materials properties prediction 
• Stochastic and Statistical models development 
• Data science driven materials design

 Awards & Honors

Recent Publications

Amra Peles, Minhua Shao, Lesia Protsailo “Pt Monolayer Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Reduction Reaction on Pd-Cu Alloy: First-Principles Investigation” Catalysts 5(3): 1193-1201 (2015)  

Minhua Shao, Amra Peles, Jonathan H Odell “Enhanced Oxygen Reduction Activity of Platinum Monolayer with a Gold Interlayer on Palladium” J. Physical Chemistry C 118(32): 18505–18509(2014)  

Minhua Shao, Jonathan H Odell, Amra Peles, Dong Su” The role of transition metals in the catalytic activity of Pt alloys: quantification of strain and ligand effects.” Chemical Communications 50 2173-2176 (2014) 

Sean C. Emerson, Tianli Zhu, Timothy D. Davis, Amra Peles, Ying Sha, Rhonda R. Willigan, Thomas H. Vanderspurt, Michael Swanson, Daniel A. Laudal “Liquid phase reforming of woody biomass to hydrogen”. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 39(1): 137-149 (2014)  

Minhua Shao, Guannan He, Amra Peles, Jonathan H Odell, Jie Zeng, Dong Su, Jing Tao, Taekyung Yu, Yimei Zhu, Younan Xia “Manipulating the oxygen reduction activity of platinum shells with shape-controlled palladium nanocrystal cores” Chemical Communications 49 9030-9032 (2013)  

Amra Peles Book Chapter: “Nanostructured Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction: First-Principles Computational Insights” pages 613-635; published in Electrocatalysis in Fuel Cells: A Non- and Low- Platinum Approach, publisher Springer (2013)  

Amra Peles “GGA+ U method from first principles: application to reduction–oxidation properties in ceria-based oxides” Journal of Materials Science 47(21): 7542-7548 (2012)  

Minhua Shao, Amra Peles, Krista Shoemaker “Electrocatalysis on Platinum Nanoparticles: Particle Size Effect on Oxygen Reduction Reaction Activity” Nano Letters 11(9): 3714-9 (2011)  

Minhua Shao, Amra Peles, Krista Shoemaker, Mallika Gummalla, Peter N. Njoki, Jin Luo, and Chuan-Jian Zhon “Enhanced Oxygen Reduction Activity of Platinum Monolayer on Gold Nanoparticles” J. Physical Chemistry Letters, 2 (2), 67–72 (2011) 

Sameh Dardona, Amra Peles, Gregory Wrobel, Martin Piech, Pu-Xian Gao “Gas adsorption and high-emission current induced degradation of field emission characteristics in solution-processed ZnO nanoneedles” J. Applied Physics 108, 124318 (2010)