Principal Investigator

Dr. Qing Cao (CV)
Associate Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Department of Chemistry
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
104 S Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Office: 1008 MRL
Email: qingcao2@illinois.edu

          Qing Cao is an associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering and, by courtesy, of Chemistry and Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Prior to joining Illinois in 2018, Cao was a research scientist in the Department of Physical Sciences at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center.  He received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Nanjing University in 2004 and his Ph.D. in Materials Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009.  Cao’s interdisciplinary research focus on developing functional nanomaterials for unconventional electronic systems, high-performance logic devices, and low-cost energy harvesting.  He has published over thirty research papers; is co-inventor on fifty patents and patent applications.  Cao’s research has received recognitions including the IBM Pat Goldberg Memorial Best Paper Award (2017), IBM Master Inventor Award (2016), IBM Research Division Award (2016), US Frontiers of Engineering by National Academy of Engineering (2016), IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award (2015), and IBM Invention Achievement Awards (2011-2018, 17 times).  He made Forbes’s list of “30 Under 30” for 2012 in the Science category, as “the field’s brightest stars under the age of 30 representing the entrepreneurial, creative and intellectual best of their generation”, and further received the distinction of this list’s “Most Influential All-Star Alumni” in 2016.  MIT Technology Review listed him in 2016 as one of the top thirty-five global innovators under the age of thirty-five (TR35).  The Atlantic Council selected him in 2017 as one of 21 “rising leaders and innovators around the world committed to achieving transformational change with a global impact” (Millennium Fellow).

Ph.D. Graduate Students

Fufei An
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU), China (2018)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2018-)
Email: fufeian2@illinois.edu

Jinsong Cui
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
Tsinghua University, China (2018)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2018-)
Email: jinsong4@illinois.edu

Yi Zhang
B.S. Materials Chemistry
University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) (2018)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2018-)
Email: yiz14@illinois.edu

Bao Lam
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2020)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2020-)
Email: baohl2@illinois.edu

Hsien-Nung Wang
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
National Taiwan University, Taiwan  (2020)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2021-)
Email: hnwang3@illinois.edu

Yeojeong (Kristina) Yun
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2019)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2021-)
Email: yyun6@illinois.edu

Yung Man Yu
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2022)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2022-)
Email: ymyu2@illinois.edu

Hyunjun Nam
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
Hanyang University (2020)
M.S. Materials Science and Engineering
Hanyang University (2022)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2022-)
Email: hn7@illinois.edu

Sunny Wong
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
Cornell University (2022)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2022-)
Email: sunnyw2@illinois.edu

Haoran Liu
B.S. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (2023)
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2023-)
Email: haoran7@illinois.edu

M.S. Graduate Students

Sophie Wu
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
HOlin College of Engineering (2022)
M.S. Materials Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2022-)
Email: yuwu9@illinois.edu

We are always looking for the best and most qualified potential graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to join the group. Interested applicants, please contact Professor Cao (qingcao2@illinois.edu) with your CV and research interests.