Materials Science and Engineering
Showing 261-277 of 277 Results
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Adrian Yao
Ph.D. Student in Materials Science and Engineering, admitted Autumn 2023
BioAdrian Yao is the Founder and Team Lead of STEER, a DOE-funded initiative at Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy and SLAC. STEER focuses on the intersection of engineering, economics, and innovation to guide “what to build, where to innovate, and how to invest.” Prior to Stanford, Adrian spent 8 years in industry as the Founder and CTO of a Li-ion battery startup, EnPower, Inc., where he continues to serve as a board director. After having developed EnPower's technology from lab to pilot and validated performance gains with OEMs and cell makers, EnPower is now scaling domestic cell manufacturing in a multi-MWh manufacturing facility in Indianapolis, IN, spearheading the domestic production of Li-ion cells for high-performance applications. Adrian obtained his B.S. in Material Science & Engineering from Rice University in Houston, TX and is simultaneously pursuing his Ph.D. in Materials Engineering at Stanford. Adrian is originally born in Houston, TX but spent the majority of his childhood in Taipei, Taiwan prior to returning to the U.S. in 2010.
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Yigao Yuan
Postdoctoral Scholar, Materials Science and Engineering
Bioheterogeneous photocatalysis
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Renee Zhao
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Bioengineering and of Materials Science and Engineering
BioRuike Renee Zhao is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, where she directs the Soft Intelligent Materials Laboratory. Originally from the historic city of Xi'an, she earned her BS from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2012. She then pursued Solid Mechanics at Brown University, obtaining her MS in 2014 and PhD in 2016. Following her doctoral studies, she completed postdoctoral training at MIT (2016–2018) before serving as an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University (2018–2021).
Renee’s research focuses on developing stimuli-responsive soft composites for multifunctional robotic systems with integrated shape-changing, assembly, sensing, and navigation capabilities. By integrating mechanics, material science, and advanced material manufacturing, her work enables innovations in soft robotics, miniaturized biomedical devices, robotic surgery, origami systems, active metamaterials, and general deployable morphing structures.
Her contributions have been recognized with honors and awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA, 2025), ARO Early Career Program (ECP) Award (2023), AFOSR Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) Award (2023), Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty (2022), ASME Henry Hess Early Career Publication Award (2022), ASME Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal (2022), ASME Applied Mechanics Division Journal of Applied Mechanics Award (2021), NSF CAREER Award (2020), and ASME Applied Mechanics Division Haythornthwaite Research Initiation Award (2018). She is also recognized as a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow and was named one of MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35. -
Xiaolin Zheng
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, of Energy Science Engineering, Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and Professor, by courtesy, of Materials Science and Engineering
BioProfessor Zheng received her Ph.D. in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University (2006), B.S. in Thermal Engineering from Tsinghua University (2000). Prior to joining Stanford in 2007, Professor Zheng did her postdoctoral work in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. Professor Zheng is a member of MRS, ACS and combustion institute. Professor Zheng received the TR35 Award from the MIT Technology Review (2013), one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers by the Foreign Policy Magazine (2013), 3M Nontenured Faculty Grant Award (2013), the Presidential Early Career Award (PECASE) from the white house (2009), Young Investigator Awards from the ONR (2008), DARPA (2008), Terman Fellowship from Stanford (2007), and Bernard Lewis Fellowship from the Combustion Institute (2004).
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Shiyuan Zhou
Postdoctoral Scholar, Materials Science and Engineering
BioShiyuan Zhou is a recipient of the 2026 Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship. He received his Ph.D. in Energy Chemistry in 2024 through a joint doctoral program between Xiamen University and Argonne National Laboratory, under the supervision of Prof. Shi-Gang Sun, Dr. Gui-Liang Xu, and Dr. Khalil Amine.
His research advances the frontiers of battery chemistry through the development of multimodal operando electrochemical scanning/transmission electron microscopy (EC-S/TEM) integrated with synchrotron X-ray characterization, enabling direct observation of real-time electrochemical and structural dynamics in energy materials. Trained as both a materials chemist and microscopist, his work focuses on visualizing highly sensitive and previously inaccessible electrochemical processes in batteries.
During his doctoral research, he developed in situ liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy techniques to probe real-time reaction dynamics in lithium–sulfur batteries. Following his Ph.D., he continued at Argonne as a postdoctoral fellow, where he expanded his research to multimodal and multiscale imaging approaches, integrating advanced electron microscopy with transmission X-ray microscopy to study all-solid-state batteries. His research has been recognized as one of China’s Top 10 Scientific Advances of 2023, and he has received the Tan Kah Kee Medal as well as the Argonne Impact Award.
