In the area of sustainable energy, a major focus has been to design robust electrocatalysts that can be used for the electrolysis of water to produce H2 with a sustainable energy source such as solar. Sustainable H2 generation would potentially be a prelude to the adoption of a hydrogen economy, allowing the phasing out of fossil fuels as a primary fuel source. Toward this end, there is a global research effort to develop electrocatalysts that would facilitate the kinetics of the two half-reactions that make up the water-splitting process: the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). A challenge is to develop active electrocatalysts that are largely composed of earth-abundant elements and show catalytic stability during water splitting at low pH, where the scientific community feels that commercial electrolysis will operate most efficiently. Currently, iridium oxide (IrO2) is being looked at for low pH water splitting because of its stability at low pH, but its relative scarcity (e.g., it is a precious metal) may well make it an unacceptable choice in the long run.In this dissertation, we focus on understanding the scientific issues that will allow the development of earth-abundant catalysts that contain a loading of Ir that is low as possible, while maintaining suitable activity and stability. We began by synthesizing a series of Ir-based OER electrocatalysts by incorporating varying amounts of Ir into 2D layered MnO2 (birnessite, nominally δ-MnO2) and 3D MnO2 (pyrolusite, β-MnO2) phases. The Ir-incorporated δ-MnO2 (Ir/δ-MnO2) electrocatalysts with 16-22 wt% Ir were synthesized by a wet chemical method using a ligating agent, such that Ir was present on the surface and partially intercalated into the interlayer of δ-MnO2. Ir-incorporated β-MnO2 (Ir/β-MnO2) was prepared for the first time via a thermally induced phase transition of Ir/δ-MnO2. This phase transition of δ-MnO2 to β-MnO2 was facilitated by the presence of Ir in the structure, as both Ir in IrO2 and Mn in β-MnO2 could adopt the more thermodynamically stable rutile structure. Extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) of Ir/β-MnO2 showed that the catalyst consisted of Ir substituted into the crystalline β-MnO2 lattice, additionally, high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging revealed micron-sized particles with non-uniform distribution of Ir in the MnO2. In 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolyte, 22 wt% Ir/β-MnO2 (60 〖μg〗_Ir cm_geo^(-2)) resulted in the most active catalyst with an η@10 (overpotential at 10 mA cm_geo^(-2)) of 337 mV and stability of 6 h. This electrocatalyst outperformed a commercial IrO2 on a per Ir mass basis. EXAFS, HAADF-STEM and X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) showed that 22 wt% Ir/β-MnO2 had a strained structure containing ~41% Mn3+, an OER active species, along with a modified Ir bonding due to the presence of Ir-O-Ir and Ir-O-Mn. Density functional theory (DFT) computation has demonstrated that this modified bonding environment in Ir/β-MnO2 has contributed to enhancing the thermodynamic stability of the structure. Furthermore, the literature suggests that the presence of Ir-O-Mn bond can favorably tune the d-orbital energy of Ir, enabling superior performance in the Ir/β-MnO2 compared to IrO2. The thesis research also included the investigation of the activity and stability of Ir/β-MnO2 that was synthesized via a novel strategy. The resulting material maintained a homogeneous distribution of Ir in the MnO2 lattice and exhibited excellent OER activity and stability. A surfactant-assisted (SA) synthesis method was carried out to achieve uniform doping of 22-28 wt.% Ir in 3D MnO2 (ramsdellite, R-MnO2). Upon annealing, Ir/R-MnO2 transformed to Ir/β-MnO2 (SA), composed of nano-sized particles. Electrochemical studies in 0.5 M H2SO4 showed that, Ir/β-MnO2 (SA) with 75.6 〖µg〗_Ir cm_geo^(-2) exhibited an η of 327 mV and exceptional stability (up to 50 h). At similar Ir mass loadings, the Ir/β-MnO2 (SA) outperformed Ir/R-MnO2 (SA) and commercial IrO2. This enhanced activity and stability was attributed to a thermodynamically stable structure composed of uniform distribution of Ir (Ir-O-Mn) in the MnO2 lattice. Overall, the research results presented in this dissertation contributed towards designing a novel class of Ir-MnO2 catalysts, which potentially will point the scientific community in the right direction for designing future noble metal-incorporated earth-abundant metal oxides for electrocatalytic energy conversion reactions. / Chemistry