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UNIVERSITY AWARD

Outstanding Young Researcher Award 2022

Dr Yufeng WANG

Dr Yufeng WANG
Assoicate Professor
Department of Chemistry

Dr Yufeng WANG, Department of Chemistry obtained his BS degree from Peking University in 2008 and his PhD degree from New York University in 2013. After his postdoctoral training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he joined the University of Hong Kong as an Assistant Professor in 2016, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022. He received the Croucher Innovation Award 2019 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Hong Kong and Macau) 2022. 

Dr Wang is a materials chemist, with special expertise in the synthesis and self-assembly of colloids, nanoparticles, and polymers. Over the past years, Dr Wang and his team have strengthened the design of anisotropic particles, which are the essential components for creating mesoscale materials with application in photonics, sensing, microrobotics, cargo delivery and active matter. The team’s recent and key strategy is to fabricate particles with low-symmetry shapes and heterogeneous surfaces, which introduces specific and directional interactions between particles and leads to the assembly of complex superstructures. The reduced symmetry also encodes information that guides the particle’s dynamics, making them useful toward active materials, which propel, combine, reconfigure and evolve, emulating those in the biological and living systems. 

As a researcher, Dr Wang believes that creativity comes from the desire for new things. The new discoveries and knowledge keep his motivation and enthusiasm for pursuing innovative ideas and thinking differently.