Chemical Society Reviews Blog

Find out more about Jennifer’s research at her homepage.

Jian-Feng Li (李剑锋) is a full Professor of Chemistry at Xiamen University. He received his BSc degree in Chemistry from Zhejiang University in 2003, and his PhD degree in Chemistry from Xiamen University in 2010. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern and ETH Zurich in Switzerland during 2011–2014.

Professor Li’s research interests include core-shell nanomaterials, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, in-situ characterization, electrochemistry, and rapid detection using portable Raman instrumentation. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers including Nature, Nature Nanotechnol., Nature Mater., Nature Energy, Nature Catal., Nature Protoc., Nature Commun., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., with over 20000 total citations. Professor Li serves as a Senior Editor of J. Phys. Chem. and the International Steering Committee (ISC) of the International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy (ICORS).

Find out more about Jian-Feng’s research at his group’s homepage.

Charles W. Machan is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Virginia, USA. He completed his B.A. in 2008 with Majors in Chemistry and German at Washington University in St. Louis and his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2012 under the supervision of Prof. Chad A. Mirkin at Northwestern University. Charles was a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Prof. Clifford P. Kubiak from 2013–2016 at UC San Diego, before beginning his independent career at the University of Virginia in 2016. His research interests are in bioinspired and biomimetic small-molecule activation, electrochemistry, and catalysis.

Find out more about Charles’ research at his group’s homepage.

Kanishka Biswas obtained his MS and Ph.D. (Int. Ph.D) (2009) degree (Advisor- C.N.R Rao) from the Solid State & Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and did postdoctoral research (Advisor- Mercouri G. Kanatzidis) (2009–2012) in Northwestern University, USA. He is a full Professor in the JNCASR, Bangalore. He is pursuing research in solid state & inorganic chemistry, thermoelectric energy conversion, 2D materials, topological quantum materials and perovskite halides. He is recipient of numerous awards including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemistry in 2021 which is the most coveted science & technology prize in India. He is an elected Fellow of Indian Academy Sciences (FASc), Bangalore. He is an invited Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), London, UK. He is an Executive Editor of ACS Applied Energy Materials, ACS and serves as advisory board member of various international journals including Inorganic Chemistry, Journal of Solid State Chemistry, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, iScience, Materials Horizon and JACS Au.

Follow Professor Biswas on Twitter @kanishkabiswas

Prof. Radha Boya FRSC is a professor, Royal Society University Research fellow and Kathleen Ollerenshaw fellow in the department of Physics & Astronomy, and National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester. Radha’s research team investigates properties of gas, liquids and ions confined in molecular scale with Angstrom (Å) -size capillaries constructed out of 2D-materials. Her research team works on developing Å-capillaries as a platform to experimentally probe intriguing molecular-scale phenomena under confinement. 

After completing her PhD (2012) in Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research India with Prof G U Kulkarni, she did her post-doctoral research with Prof Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University in the United States. In 2014, she moved to the University of Manchester in UK working with Prof Andre Geim, where she devised nanofabrication methods to make ultimately narrow fluidic channels with angstrom-scale dimensions, by effectively removing a single atomic plane from a bulk layered crystal. Following this, Radha secured a series of international research fellowships that have enabled her to rapidly build her research profile and an independent career in the UK. She became a full professor in 2020.

Follow Professor Boya on Twitter @radhaboya

Prof. Dr. Rui Cao received his BS (2003) in chemistry from Peking University in China and his PhD (2008) from Emory University in USA with Professor Craig L. Hill. He worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow (2008-2009) at Emory University and was the Dreyfus Postdoctoral Fellow (2009-2011) at MIT with Professor Stephen J. Lippard. In 2011, he became a professor at Renmin University of China, and transferred to Shaanxi Normal University in 2014. His research interests lie in bioinorganic chemistry and catalysis for energy-related small molecule activation reactions. By developing metal porphyrins and metal corroles as model catalysts, he paid particular emphasis on illustrating the reaction mechanisms of H-H and O-O bond formation/lysis. He is the recipient of the SPP/JPP Young Investigator Award in 2020. He is the Editorial Board Chair of ChemSusChem and is the Editorial Board member of several journals, including Chemical Society Reviews, ChemPhysChem, Chinese Journal of Catalysis, Chinese Chemical Letters, and Journal of Electrochemistry.

His research interests encompass electrochemical energy storage and conversion technology, with his main focus on beyond Li-ion battery technologies. Dr. Lu was elected as associate president and board committee member of the International Academy of Electrochemical Energy Science (IAOEES) in 2016.