For his dissertation work, Dr. Blackburn worked primarily at NREL with Dr. Arthur Nozik, studying ultra-fast relaxation and charge-transfer processes occurring in semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and QD interfaces. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Michael Heben at NREL, focusing on the applications of low-dimensional carbon in hydrogen storage and photovoltaics. He is a Senior Scientist and Group Manager at NREL, leading projects on a variety of fundamental and applied research topics. His work focuses on low-dimensional carbon and includes the synthesis, purification, separation, and characterization of single-walled carbon nanotubes and graphene. An overarching goal of his research is to produce highly pure, well-characterized, single-walled carbon nanotube and graphene samples that are rationally tailored for integration into renewable energy applications such as photovoltaics, thermoelectric devices, batteries, solar fuel generation, and fuel cells.