Dr Mita DASOG (Canada)

Mita’s independent research focuses on developing sustainable nanomaterials for renewable energy production, improving food security, and solar desalination. In her doctoral work she conducted research on nanomaterial made of silicon, which is widely available in the environment and could transform computers and cell phones into more energy-efficient gadgets.

PhD in Materials Chemistry

Current position: Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University, Canada

Research focus: nanomaterials for renewable energy

Mita received the Green Talents award, which gave her the opportunity to study carbon dioxide sequestration during her two-month research stay at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Afterwards, she worked on mesostructured earth abundant materials for fuel generation at the California Institute of Technology, United States of America. Mita was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada in 2014 to carry out her work at Caltech.

2020 New member of Global Young Academy
2019 Dalhousie University President’s Research Excellence Award
2019 Selected to represent the element silicon in the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in celebration of the International Year of the Periodic Table
2017 Top 150 Canadian Women in STEM, list by hEr_VOLUTION organisation
2015 Canadian Council of University Chemistry Chairs Doctoral Award
2014 Canadian Society for Chemistry National Award for Outstanding Graduate Work in Inorganic Chemistry
2013 Top 25 Global Young Scientists in Sustainable Research

CV as submitted for the Green Talents award (2013):

Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Canada

Research focus: synthesis and application of silicon-based nanomaterials

Award-winning chemist Mita Dasog conducts research on nanomaterials made of one of the most abundant elements on earth, silicon, in order to make our computers and cell phones more energy efficient.

What if your smartphone were smart enough to save the environment? Mita Dasog has been studying and researching to solve this question for a long time. The main objective of her research project is to prepare various types of silicon nanomaterials at low temperatures. By using silicon to produce nanomaterial particles that will end up in our computers, smartphones and tablets, Dasog plans to decrease our dependency on the less available resources.

Having successfully graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with honours, Dasog is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta, conducting groundbreaking research on nanomaterials. During a two-month research visit to the Technical University of Munich, Dasog decided to focus on environmentally relevant research of silicon nanomaterials.

Dasog emphasises the importance of making use of abundant sources on earth in order to develop a technology based on these materials. Therefore, she is using the second-most abundant element on earth – silicon – that will serve for exactly this purpose. She notes that her aim “is to not only develop chemistry based on sustainable resources, but to also improve upon the existing methods and develop straightforward synthetic routes using less harmful reagents.”