Materials Chemistry Frontiers Blog

Fred Wudl, Retired 2019, University of UCSB. B.S. 1964 and Ph.D. 1967, UCLA and postdoctoral, Harvard, 1968 to 1972 SUNY Buffalo, 1972 – 1982 Bell Laboratories, 1982 – 1997 UCSB, 1997 – 2006 UCLA, 2006 – 2019 UCSB. Discovered the electronic conductivity of the precursor to the first organic metal and superconductor. Research interests in conducting polymers. Currently interests in optical and electrooptical properties of processable conjugated polymers, organic chemistry of fullerenes, design and preparation of self-mending and self-healing materials and Li batteries. Received numerous and has published over 595 papers with 47,500 citations and H index of 100.

Kirk Schanze earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Florida State University in 1979 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1983. He was appointed a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1984-1986 and began his independent faculty career at the University of Florida in 1986. Schanze was University Distinguished Professor and Prominski Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida until 2016. He is currently the Robert A Welch Distinguished University Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He was a Senior Editor of the ACS journal Langmuir from 2000-2008. Since 2008, Schanze is Editor-in-Chief of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the ACS journal focused on chemistry and engineering of applications-focused research in materials and interfaces.He has authored or co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed articles on basic and applied research topics, with a primary focus on organic and organometallic materials chemistry, and is named in 20 patents or disclosures.

He got his PhD in 1997 at University of Victoria with Prof Reg Mitchel. From 1997-1999, he had worked as a Postdoc at UCLA with Prof Fred Wudl and University of Kentucky with Prof Robert Haddon. From 2003, he has been working at Nankai University as a chair professor.

He has published over 300 papers, including that in Science, Nature, JACS, AM, etc., which have been cited over 50000 times with H-index of 102. He has been recognized as one of highly-cited researchers by Clarivate Analytics since 2014.

Hong Meng received his PhD under the guidance of Prof. Fred Wudl from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States in 2002. He has been working in the field of organic electronics for more than 20 years. His career experiences include working in the Institute of Materials Science and Engineering (IMRE) at Singapore, Lucent Technologies Bell Labs, DuPont Experimental Station. In 2012, Dr. Meng joined a laser printing company and conducted new research in chemical toner synthesis, special rubber composites and conducting ink formulations. He was selected under the Recruitment Program of Global Experts in 2013. In 2014, he moved to the School of Advanced Materials at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School.

Prof. Meng’s research focuses on organic opto-electronic functional materials and devices: 1. Organic Electrochromics; 2. Sensors; 3. Light-Emitting Diodes; 4. Photovoltaics. He has contributed over 130 peer-reviewed papers (Citations: >6000) in Chemistry and Materials Science fields, filed over 46 US patents, 60 Chinese patents, published several book chapters and co-edited one book titled “Organic Light-Emitting Materials and Devices”.

Qichun Zhang obtained his B.S. at Nanjing University in China in 1992, MS in physical organic chemistry (organic solid lab) at Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1998, MS in organic chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles (USA), and completed his Ph.D. in chemistry at University of California Riverside in 2007. Then, he joined Prof. Kanatzidis’ group at Northwestern University as a Postdoctoral Fellow (Oct. 2007 –Dec. 2008). Since Jan. 2009, he joined School of Materials Science and Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU, Singapore) as an Assistant Professor. On Mar 1st, 2014, he has promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. On Sep 1^st 2020, he moved to Department of Materials Science and Engineering at City University of Hong Kong as a full professor. Currently, he is an associate editor of J. Solid State Chemistry, the International Advisory Board member of Chemistry – An Asian Journal, the Advisory board member of Journal of Materials Chemistry C, the Advisory board member of Materials Chemistry Frontiers, and the Advisory board member of Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers. Also, he is Guest Editor of Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers (2016-2017), Guest Editor of Journal of Materials Chemistry C (2017-2018), and Guest Editor of Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers (2017-2018). In 2018, 2019 and 2020, he has been recognized as one of highly-cited researchers (top 1%) in cross-field in Clarivate Analytics. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Currently, his research focuses on carbon-rich conjugated materials and their applications. Till now, he has published >395 papers and 5 patents (total citation > 20000, and H-index: 79).

He studied at Donetsk State University in Ukraine and received PhD in chemistry from the Institute of Physical Organic Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1999. This was followed by post-doctoral training at Durham University with Martin Bryce and at UCLA with Fred Wudl. After his first appointment at INRS-Energy, Materials and Telecommunications, Canada (2003), he moved to McGill University in 2005. The contributions of his research group include low-gap donor-acceptor systems, two-dimensional polymers and covalent organic frameworks, luminescent organic semiconductors, on-surface self-assembly, supramolecular design of semiconductors.