Héctor D. Abruña  Héctor Daniel Abruña (born 1953) is an American physical chemist whose work focuses on electrochemistry. Abruña is director of the "Energy Materials Center" and Emile M. Chamot professor for chemistry at Cornell University. He became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006, a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018. Abruña conducts research into battery and fuel cell systems using electrochemical techniques and X-ray microscopy and spectroscopy methods. Abruña was born in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1953 and grew up in Puerto Rico. He studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, graduating with his bachelor of science degree in 1975 and master of science degree in 1976. He then earned a PhD in analytical chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980. As a postdoc, Abruña worked with Allen J. Bard at University of Texas at Austin. In 1982, Abruña became a professor at the University of Puerto Rico. He joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1983. Abruña chaired the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology 2004–2008. He is director of the Energy Materials Center at Cornell (previously the Cornell Fuel Cell Institute). In 2018, Abruña became the lead of the Center for Alkaline-Based Energy Solutions (CABES) at Cornell University, supported by the United States Department of Energy. Abruña was co-chair of the "Basic Energy Sciences Workshop on Electrical Energy Storage" hosted by the United States Department of Energy in 2007 and acted as a principal editor on the report "Basic Research Needs for Electrical Energy Storage". He chaired the 2006 Electrochemistry Gordon Research Conference, supported through the NSF and DOE. Abruña advocates for underrepresented minorities to join the sciences at Cornell, and actively recruits students from Puerto Rican universities to access research and mentors in the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source. Fifteen of the 55 students who graduated from Abruña's group as of 2018 were from Puerto Rico. He collaborates on outreach activities with Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. Abruña co-founded the battery company Lionano in 2013, with an initial grant from PowerBridgeNY. He also co-founded the startup company Ecolectro with Geoffrey W. Coates, which received funding from both the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.