A researcher in the College of LAS has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers.
Ying Diao, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, was one of four at the U of I to receive the award. The others include health and kinesiology professor Marni Boppart, physics professor Barry Bradlyn, and computer science professor Edgar Solomonik.
Diao’s research focuses on understanding the assembly of functional polymers and innovating printing approaches that enable structural control down to the molecular and nanoscale to enable next-generation electronics and greener energy. She has received many awards for her work. She was named to the list of Technology Review Innovators Under 35 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, a NASA Early Career Faculty Award and the AIChE Allen P. Colburn Award for Excellence in Publications. Diao also is affiliated with chemistry, materials science and engineering, the Beckman Institute and the Materials Research Laboratory at Illinois.
Boppart is the Saul J. Morse and Anne B. Morgan Professor in Applied Health Sciences and studies molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for the health benefits of exercise. This information is then used to develop novel cell- and pharmacological-based interventions that can prevent or treat loss of muscle mass and function with age. Boppart also is affiliated with cell and developmental biology, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.
Bradlyn studies theoretical condensed matter physics, specializing in topological phases of matter. His research centers on geometry and topology in solid-state systems, focusing on how we can use these mathematical tools to identify and understand new exotic quantum materials. He is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow and has been awarded an Air Force Young Investigator Award, an NSF Career Award and the McMillian Award.
Solomonik studies the design of efficient algorithms for numerical problems, with a focus on tensor computations, a class of challenging calculations characterized by many parameters and unknown variables. Tensors provide a mathematical framework for solving complex and data-intensive problems prevalent in physics, chemistry and other scientific domains.
Editor's note: This Illinois News Bureau release has been modified from its original version.
