2020 Materials Today Rising Stars

Recognizing early career Materials researchers (within 15 years of completing their PhD) who have demonstrated exceptional capabilities, and with the potential to become future leaders in the fields of Biomaterials, Energy conversion, Energy Storage, or Quantum materials

Editors

Prof Gleb Yushin – GeorgiaTech

Prof Jun Lou – Rice University

Journal Metrics

Impact Factor: 26.416

CiteScore: 31.1

2018 Inaugural Materials Today Rising Star Awardees

2019 Materials Today Rising Star Awardees

2020 Materials Today Rising Star Awardees

Biomaterials

Y. Shrike Yang 

Harvard University

Dr. Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Bioengineer in the Division of Engineering in Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Zhang directs the Laboratory of Engineered Living Systems, where the research is focused on innovating medical engineering technologies, including 3D bioprinting, organs-on-chips, microfluidics, and bioanalysis, to recreate functional tissues and their biomimetic models, for applications in regenerative medicine and personalized medicine. He is an author of >210 peer-reviewed publications and his scientific contributions have been recognized by >40 international, national, and regional awards.  

Zhen Gu

Zhejiang University

Dr. Zhen Gu is a Chair Professor and Dean of College of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Zhejiang University. Dr. Gu received his B.S. degree in Chemistry and M.S. degree in Polymer Chemistry and Physics from Nanjing University. In 2010, he obtained Ph.D. from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was a Postdoctoral Associate working with Dr. Robert Langer at MIT and Harvard Medical School. Before he moved to Zhejiang University in 2020, he was a Full Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the NIH Biotechnology Training in Biomedical Sciences and Engineering Program at UCLA. He has published over 200 research papers and applied over 100 patents. He is a cofounder of five start-up companies, including Zenomics and ZenCapsule. Dr. Gu serves as an Associate Editor for Science Advances and Nano Research.

Energy Conversion

Haotian Wang

Rice University

Dr. Haotian Wang is currently a William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. He obtained his PhD degree in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University in 2016 and his Bachelor of Science in Physics at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2011. In 2016 after his PhD graduation he achieved Rowland Fellowship and began his independent research career at Harvard as a principle investigator. He was awarded the 2020 Packard Fellow, 2019 CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar, 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30, and highly cited researchers in 2018, 2019, and 2020. He serves as the Early Career Advisory Board of Nano Letters and editorial board of Communications Materials. His research group has been focused on developing novel nanomaterials for energy and environmental applications including energy storage, chemical/fuel generation, water treatment, and so on. 

Energy Storage

Jie Xiao

PNNL

Dr. Jie Xiao is currently a Laboratory Fellow and Group Leader of Battery Materials & System Group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Dr. Xiao obtained her Ph.D degree in Materials Chemistry from State University of New York Binghamton. She has been leading research thrusts on both practical applications and fundamental study of energy storage materials and systems, spanning from micro-batteries for acoustic fish tags to advanced battery technologies for vehicle electrification and grid energy storage. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal papers, 2 book chapters and holds 17 US patents in the area of energy storage research area. Dr. Xiao has been named top 1% Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher since 2017. 

Jun Lu

ANL

Dr. Jun Lu is a chemist at Argonne National Laboratory. His research interests focus on the electrochemical energy storage and conversion technology, with main focus on beyond Li-ion battery technology. Dr. Lu earned his bachelor degree in Chemistry Physics from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2000. He completed his Ph.D. from the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at University of Utah in 2009 with a major research on metal hydrides for reversible hydrogen storage application. He is the awardee of the first DOE-EERE postdoctoral fellow under Vehicles Technology Program from 2011-2013. He serves as the associate editor of ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. He was elected as associate president and board committee member of the International Academy of Electrochemical Energy Science (IAOEES). He is also the first awardee of IAOEES Award for Research Excellence in Electrochemistry Energy in 2016. Dr. Lu has authored/co-authored more than 400 peer-reviewed research articles, including Nature; Science; Nature Energy; Nature Nanotechnology; Chem. Rev.; Nature Commun.; JACS; etc, and has filed over 20 patents and patent applications. 

Quantum Materials

Xiaofeng Qian

Texas A&M University

Dr. Xiaofeng Qian is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. He received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008. He then worked a postdoctoral scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2015, Dr. Qian joined Texas A&M University and received NSF CAREER award in 2018. His research areas include first-principles electronic structure methods, nonlinear light-matter interaction, quantum transport, photovoltaics, strain engineering, low-dimensional materials, topological materials and topological phase transition. He contributed to the discovery of quantum spin Hall effect in 1T’ transition metal dichalcogenides (e.g. 1T’-WTe2, MoTe2) and topological field effect transistor, the discovery of 2D ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, and multiferroic materials, theory of strainengineered exciton funneling, theory of ferroelectric nonlinear anomalous Hall effect and Berry curvature memory, and microscopic theory of magnetic shift photocurrent and magnetic injection photocurrent in PT-symmetric magnetic topological quantum materials.