Yuan Yang

Of particular interest to Yang is designing the composition and structure of battery materials to realize high performance. He has designed various nanostructured electrodes to enhance power density, cycle life, and energy density of batteries. He also developed a vertically aligned structure for enhancing the ionic conductivity of solid electrolyte. Besides material design, Yang is also interested in understanding fundamental processes in battery reactions. He has employed synchrotron, TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy), and optical approaches to understand various electrochemical reactions, such as the growth of lithium dendrite, and the dissolution of polysulfides. Moreover, Yang is interested in using chemical and electrochemical methods to control thermal radiative properties for thermal management.

Yang received a BS in physics from Peking University in 2007 and a PhD in materials science and engineering from Stanford University in 2012. After working as a postdoctoral associate at MIT for three years, he joined Columbia University as an assistant professor in 2015 and was promoted to associate professor in 2020.