Steven Chavez, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Steven Chavez is an Assistant Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA. His long-term career goal is to develop tools and model systems to advance mechanistic understanding of dynamics in heterogenous catalysis.
Prior to UCLA, he was previously an Arnold O. Beckman postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Prior to Stanford, he received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a Ford Foundation Fellow, a Rackham Merit Fellow, and a Rackham Predoctoral Fellow.
Outside of research, he is a strong advocate for increasing diversity in STEM. He has 14+ years of experience conceiving, planning, and executing programs/events to improve the recruitment and retention of first-generation, low-income students in STEM fields. At UCLA, Steven works with the Chicano Studies Research Center to implement and evaluate programs to help UCLA reach its goal of becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution.

Education
2022-2024
Postdoctoral Researcher
Stanford University
2017-2022
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering
University of Michigan
2015-2017
M.S. Chemical Engineering
University of Michigan
2012-2015
B.S. Chemical Engineering
UC Berkeley
Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor - Matteo Cargnello
Project - Investigating dynamics in metal alloy catalysts
NSF Fellow, Ford Fellow, Rackham Predoctoral Fellow
Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor - Suljo Linic
Project - Engineering energy flow in plasmonic catalysts
Rackham Merit Fellow
Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor - Suljo Linic
Project - Engineering energy flow in plasmonic catalysts
NSF CAMP, UC LEADS Scholar
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Supervisor - Ian Sharp
Project - Quantifying charge carrier fluxes in metal-semiconductor systems for solar water splitting
