WashU catalyzed a career making chemical and energy production more cost-effective
Nicholas Thornburg’s BS ’12 career advancing chemistry and technology to foster energy growth started at WashU in the fall of 2008 with a curveball.
“Chemical engineering was very different than what I thought it was as a high schooler, but I maintained a lot of enthusiasm for it and am really proud to be practicing it now,” Thornburg said.
When Thornburg, a Denver native, matriculated at Washington University in St. Louis in the fall of 2008, he was drawn by a family friend’s endorsement and the university’s academic reputation. Thornburg arrived as the institution launched its newly rebranded Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering (EECE) department.
Mentored by faculty such as Daniel Giammar and Milorad Duduković, Thornburg not only developed a liking for chemical engineering throughout his undergraduate years, but he also found a niche in reaction engineering. He graduated in May 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Spanish.
After leaving WashU, Thornburg earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University in 2017. Upon graduation, Thornburg returned to Colorado and began his professional career.
Today, Thornburg is a Senior Reaction Engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), based in Golden, Colorado. Reaction engineering—a specialized branch of chemical engineering focused on designing and scaling up chemical reactors—plays a critical role in stewarding advanced energy and manufacturing innovations from laboratory research to pragmatic application.
It is also a rare specialization. Across the DOE National Laboratory system, which comprises of 17 research facilities across the nation, Thornburg may be the only active reaction engineer. In this capacity, he builds on the legacy of industry leaders he encountered at WashU, including Dr. Duduković.
At NLR, Thornburg works on the front lines of energy innovation. He interfaces with research teams working on energy storage, conversion, and chemical technologies, helping move lab-scale prototypes into field trials or full pilot facilities.
Drawing on supplemental business training from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Thornburg also serves as Technical Program Manager for NLR’s West Gate Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program, mentoring hard-tech entrepreneurs as they work to commercialize their technologies while leveraging NLR’s capabilities and expertise.
Just down the road at the Colorado School of Mines, Thornburg designed and teaches the advanced graduate-level course Advanced Reactor Design, synthesizing research literature and patent data across 19 reactor topics to prepare engineering students for real-world application.
Among the career achievements he is most proud of, Thornburg cites a recent invention co-developed with a colleague. Together, they created a novel separation technology for the Haber-Bosch process—the industrial method used to produce ammonia fertilizer. The process is central to global food production: roughly half of the nitrogen atoms in the human body originate from it, sustaining nearly 4 billion people worldwide. Traditional ammonia production, however, remains highly energy-intensive.
Thornburg and his colleagues’ novel approach changes how ammonia is separated during production, creating a way to significantly reduce energy consumption, cut production costs, increase overall chemical efficiency, revitalize domestic fertilizer manufacturing and strengthen regional supply chains.