Aisulu Aitbekova

Aisulu Aitbekova will join the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University as an assistant professor of chemical engineering, beginning in August 2025. Her research focuses on developing catalytic processes to generate sustainable fuels and chemicals. Transitioning the chemical industry from fossil fuels to sustainable feed stocks requires innovations at many different scales. Aitbekova's experience extends from developing materials at the nanoscale, to controlling the environment around these materials at the microscale, to developing processes at the macroscale.

Aitbekova received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Stanford University, her master’s degree in chemical engineering practice from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. She is a Kavli Nanoscience Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology and a member of Liquid Sunlight Alliance Energy Innovation Hub.