Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Wouter Van Gompel (Hasselt University, Belgium)! 

Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal. 

We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members. 

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Wouter Van Gompel (Hasselt University, Belgium)! 

Read our interview with Wouter

Dr Wouter Van Gompel received his Master’s degree in chemistry from Ghent University in 2015 and completed his PhD in chemistry at Hasselt University in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Dirk Vanderzande, supported by a personal PhD Fellowship from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). Following his PhD, he continued his work on hybrid perovskites as a postdoctoral researcher at Hasselt University from 2019 to 2023. During this period, he conducted international research stays at EPFL, in the group of Prof. Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, and at the University of Cambridge, in the group of Prof. Samuel Stranks. In 2023, he was appointed assistant professor (Tenure Track) in the Chemistry Department at Hasselt University, part of the joint imec-UHasselt ‘Institute for Materials Research’ (IUMAT).

He currently leads the Hybrid Materials Design (HyMaD) group and serves as (co)supervisor for nine PhD researchers. In 2025, he received the PRISM Prize (Junior category) from the Istituto di Struttura della Materia (CNR-ISM) in Italy for significant contributions to materials research over the past five years.

His research centres on hybrid materials chemistry and optoelectronics, with emphasis on low-dimensional hybrid organic–inorganic perovskites (HOIPs). He investigates how tailored organic cations integrate into inorganic frameworks to modulate energy-level alignment, excitonic behavior, and charge transport. He also develops organic interlayers to enhance the stability and efficiency of perovskite solar cells. His approach combines molecular design, synthesis, and advanced characterization to establish structure–property-performance relationships in hybrid semiconductors for applications such as solar cells, photodetectors, and light-emitting devices.

Congratulations to Wouter for his excellent work! You can read his featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below.

Ultrafast charge transfer and coherent phonons in electroactive organic cation-templated low-dimensional perovskite analogues Ilan Devroey, Yorrick Boeije, Peter Banks, Claudio Quarti, Paola La Magna, Aleksandra Ciesielska, Laurence Lutsen, Elien Derveaux, Peter Adriaensens, Kristof Van Hecke, David Beljonne, Samuel D. Stranks and Wouter T. M. Van Gompel Nanoscale Horiz., 2026, 11, 185-201 D5NH00494B

We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you! 

Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series. 

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Luiz Henrique Vieira (São Carlos Institute of Chemistry at the University of São Paulo, Brazil).

Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal. 

We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members. 

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Luiz Henrique Vieira (São Carlos Institute of Chemistry at the University of São Paulo, Brazil)! 

Read our interview with Luiz here

Dr Luiz Henrique Vieira is an assistant professor at the São Carlos Institute of Chemistry at the University of São Paulo (IQSC/USP), Brazil. He received his BSc (2012), MSc (2014) and PhD in chemistry (2018) from the Institute of Chemistry at São Paulo State University – UNESP. During his doctoral studies, he also spent a research period as a visiting scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on heterogeneous catalysis, materials chemistry, and adsorption processes for sustainable chemical transformations. During his graduate studies, he worked on the development of bifunctional lamellar catalysts derived from zeolitic structures for the upgrading of renewable feedstocks into industrially relevant products. From 2018 to 2021, he was a postdoctoral researcher at IQSC/USP within the Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Innovation (RCGI), a São Paulo Research Foundation and Shell initiative, where he developed catalytic systems for the conversion of CH₄, CO₂, and CO. Between 2021 and 2023, he was a researcher and visiting professor at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), working on technological trends in the biofuels sector within the Brazilian National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) through the Human Resources Program (PRH). His current research focuses on the development of inorganic and hybrid organic–inorganic materials for catalytic processes and gas separation, with particular emphasis on CO₂ capture and the conversion of environmentally relevant small molecules into value-added chemicals.

Congratulations to Luiz for his excellent work! You can read his featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below.

Advances in the direct conversion of CH4 and CO2 into acetic acid over bimetallic catalysts supported on H-ZSM-5 Gabriel F. Lopes, Alessandra F. Lucrédio, Luiz H. Vieira and Elisabete M. Assaf Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 3051-3060 D5NH00496A

We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you! 

Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series. 

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series. 

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Shelly Conroy (Imperial College London, UK)! 

Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal. 

We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members. 

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Shelly Conroy, (Imperial College London, UK)!

Read our interview with Shelly here 

Dr Shelly Conroy is an associate professor in the Department of Materials at Imperial College London. Her research centres on understanding how interfaces in materials evolve under real operating conditions, particularly in systems relevant to energy and quantum technologies. Her work spans both the growth of thin films and the atomic-scale characterisation of the dynamic processes that govern their behaviour.

Her group develops and applies advanced correlative characterisation approaches, combining in situ electron microscopy, electrochemical measurements, hard X-ray beamline experiments and cryogenic atom probe tomography. By bringing together techniques across multiple length scales, her research links dynamic behaviour directly to atomic-scale chemistry and structure, enabling complex interfaces to be studied in ways that were not previously possible.

Conroy is supported by a Royal Society Tata University Research Fellowship and an ERC Consolidator Grant (DISCO). She was previously a Research Ireland Industry Fellow at Analog Devices and a Staff Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She is also currently a Mercator Fellow at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg and a Principal Researcher in Advanced Electron Microscopy at Tyndall National Institute.

Congratulations to Shelly for her excellent work! You can read her featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below. 

A workflow for correlative in situ nanochip liquid cell transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography enabled by cryogenic plasma focused ion beam Neil Mulcahy, James O. Douglas, Syeda Ramin Jannat, Lukas Worch, Geri Topore, Baptiste Gault, Mary P. Ryan and Michele Shelly Conroy Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 3486-3498 D5NH00310E

We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you! 

Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series. 

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Yinan Zhang (Tongji University, China)! 

Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal. 

We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members. 

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Yinan Zhang (Tongji University, China)!

Read our interview with Yinan here

Dr Yinan Zhang is a Distinguished Researcher and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Chemical Science and Engineering and the Advanced Research Institute, Tongji University. He received his BS degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Shandong University (2012) and his PhD from the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2017) under the supervision of Academician Chunhai Fan. Dr Zhang conducted postdoctoral research at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (2017–2019) with Academician Chunhai Fan and Prof. Nadrian Seeman (NAS member), and at Arizona State University (2020–2021) with Prof. Hao Yan (NAI/AIMBE Fellow). Before joining Tongji University in 2022, he served as Senior Manager for Drug Delivery at Henlius Biopharma.

Dr Zhang’s research focuses on developing nucleic acid-based nanostructures and molecular machines. Utilizing DNA/RNA as engineering materials and harnessing principles of nucleic acid self-assembly, his group constructs precise nanoscale architectures to address specific biomedical and nanotechnological challenges.

He has published about 40 research papers, including approximately 30 as first or corresponding author in leading journals such as Science Advances, Nature Communications, J. Am. Chem. Soc. and Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. His contributions have been recognized with the CAS President’s Award (2017) and selection as a Shanghai High-Level Overseas Talent (2020). Dr Zhang also serves as a Youth Editorial Board Member for Nano-Micro Letters, Research, Exploration, and Molecules.

Congratulations to Yinan for his excellent work! You can read his featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below.  

Structure-based DNA memory with Boolean random access, Yanyu Zhou, Lanyang Gao, Chu Jiang, Yuxi Li, Qi Liu, Chengguo Xu, Yingying Liu, Huajie Liu and Yinan Zhang, Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 3447-3452, 10.1039/D5NH00502G.

We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you! 

Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series.