CV Gareth Parkinson, opens an external URL in a new window (08/2026)

• 101 peer-reviewed publications (thereof 2 Science, 2 PNAS, 3 Nature Materials, 2 Science Advances, 6 Angewandte Chemie, 4 Physical Review Letters, 1 JACS, 3 ACS Nano, 2 ACS Catalysis, 1 Chemical Reviews, 2 Book chapters, 1 Nature Materials “news and views”; as of 08/2026)
• List of publications (reposiTUm)
• List of publications (Google Scholar)
• ORCID ID: 0000-0003-2457-8977

Professional Experience

2021 – present: Full Professor, Institute of Applied Physics, TU Wien
2017 – 2020: Associate Professor, TU Wien
2015 – 2017: Assistant Professor, TU Wien (First role as PI)
2010 – 2015: University Assistant, TU Wien
2009 – 2010: Postdoctoral Researcher, Tulane University, USA
2007 – 2009: Postdoctoral Researcher, PNNL, USA

Education

2016: Habilitation in Experimental Physics, TU Wien, Austria
2007: PhD in Physics, University of Warwick, UK (Advisor: D.P. Woodruff)
1999 – 2004: MPhys in Physics, University of Warwick, UK

Prof. Parkinson earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Warwick in 2007, focusing on surface science and the structural properties of metal surfaces. After his Ph.D., he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the USA, studying molecular adsorption and surface chemistry using ultra-high-vacuum techniques. From 2009 to 2010, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Tulane University, where he worked with Ulrike Diebold on metal-oxide surface science. In 2010, he joined TU Wien as a University Assistant and established an independent research program on the atomic-scale structure and chemistry of metal-oxide surfaces, particularly iron oxides. He became Assistant Professor in 2015 and Associate Professor in 2017, and was awarded his Habilitation in Experimental Physics in 2016. Since 2021, he has been Full Professor of Surface Reactivity at TU Wien. His research focuses on understanding atomic-scale mechanisms in heterogeneous catalysis, with particular emphasis on single-atom catalysis on metal-oxide surfaces. Combining scanning probe microscopy, surface spectroscopy and quantitative surface chemistry with theoretical modelling, his group investigates catalytic processes under increasingly realistic electrochemical, photocatalytic and high-pressure conditions.

• 2022 – Elected AVS Fellow
• 2020 – ERC Consolidator Grant (€2M)
• 2018 – Gaede Prize (DPG) for “…For his excellent experimental work on iron oxide surfaces as model systems for single atom catalysis.” One prize annually for outstanding work in vacuum-related research.
• 2017 – Kardinal Innitzer Förderungspreis (awarded for the best habilitation thesis in Austria)
• 2015 – FWF START Prize (€1.2M)
• 2013 – Department of Energy Office of Science Postdoctoral Researcher Competition
   

1. Matthias Meier, Jan Hulva, Zdenĕk Jakub, Florian Kraushofer, Mislav Bobić, Roland Bliem, Martin Setvin, Michael Schmid, Ulrike Diebold, Cesare Franchini and Gareth S. Parkinson, CO oxidation by Pt₂/Fe₃O₄: metastable dimer and support configurations facilitate lattice oxygen extraction, Science Advances 8 (13), eabn4580 (2022)
2. Jan Hulva, Matthias Meier, Roland Bliem, Zdenek Jakub, Michael Schmid, Ulrike Diebold, Cesare Franchini, Gareth S. Parkinson, Unravelling CO Adsorption on Model Single-Atom Catalysts, Science 371, 375-379 (2021)
3. Zdenĕk Jakub, Jan Hulva, Matthias Meier, Roland Bliem, Florian Kraushofer, Martin Setvin, Michael Schmid, Ulrike Diebold, Cesare Franchini, Gareth S. Parkinson, Local Structure and Coordination Effects Define Adsorption in a Model Ir₁/Fe₃O₄ Single-Atom Catalyst, Angewandte Chemie 58, 13961 (2019)
4. Matthias Meier, Jan Hulva, Zdenĕk Jakub, Jir̆ı́ Pavelec, Martin Setvin, Roland Bliem, Michael Schmid, Ulrike Diebold, Cesare Franchini, and Gareth S. Parkinson, Water Agglomerates on Fe₃O₄(001), PNAS  115, E5642-E5650 (2018)
5. Roland Bliem, Jessi van der Hoeven, Adam Zavodny, Oscar Gamba, Jir̆ı́ Pavelec, Petra E. de Jongh, Michael Schmid, Ulrike Diebold, Gareth S. Parkinson, Dual role of CO in the stability of sub-nano Pt clusters at the Fe₃O₄(001) surface, PNAS 113, 8921 (2016)
6. Gareth S. Parkinson, Iron Oxide Surfaces, Surface Science Reports 71, 272 (2016)
7. Roland Bliem, Jessi van der Hoeven, Adam Zavodny, Oscar Gamba, Jir̆ı́ Pavelec, Petra E de Jongh, Michael Schmid, Ulrike Diebold, Gareth S. Parkinson, An Atomic‐Scale View of CO and H₂ Oxidation on a Pt/Fe₃O₄ Model Catalyst, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 54 (47), 13999-14002 (2016)
8. Roland Bliem, Eamon McDermott, Pascal Ferstl, Martin Setvin, Oscar Gamba, M. Alexander Schneider, Michael Schmid, Ulrike Diebold, Peter Blaha, Lutz Hammer, Gareth S. Parkinson, Subsurface Cation Vacancy Stabilization of the Magnetite (001) Surface, Science 346, 1215-1218 (2014)
9. Gareth S. Parkinson, Zbyněk Novotný, Giacomo Argentero, Michael Schmid, Jiří Pavelec, Rukan Kosak, Peter Blaha, Ulrike Diebold, CO Induced Adatom Sintering in a Pd/Fe₃O₄ Model Catalyst, Nature Materials, 12, 724 (2013)
10. Zbyněk Novotný, Giacomo Argentero, Zhiming Wang, Michael Schmid, Ulrike Diebold, Gareth S. Parkinson, Ordered Array of Single Adatoms with Remarkable Thermal Stability: Au/Fe₃O₄(001), Phys. Rev. Lett., 108, 216103 (2012)