Our research program is in the general area of heterogeneous catalysis. Our goal is to acquire a fundamental understanding of the nature of active sites on catalyst surfaces and the catalytic reaction pathways and ultimately to be able to design catalysts with the desired molecular architecture for specific reactions. Recently, we have been focusing on three groups of catalytic reactions. The first one is partial oxidation or oxidative dehydrogenation of lower alkanes. These are very important reactions for converting low-value hydrocarbons to high-value added products and intermediates. Selectivity control is the major challenge in these reactions. The second group involves application of catalysis in the protection of the environment. The reactions we are focusing on are reduction and decomposition of nitrogen oxides and reduction of sulfur dioxide. The third group of reactions are related to fuel cells. The work in this area includes fuel reformulation studies and investigation of the catalytic phenomena involved in fuel cells. In all of these projects, we put some of our effort into synthesizing catalysts with the desired catalytic properties, using a wide variety of techniques, ranging from solid-state chemistry to sol-gel techniques.