Contributors to the Emerging Investigators collection 2025: Part 1

Prof. Ambika Bhagi-Damodaran is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota in the US. Her research focuses on exploring and engineering metalloenzymes for sustainable catalysis and cellular signaling control. Ambika has published >30 research articles and has been honored by numerous awards. Her most notable awards include ACS Young Investigator Award, NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein postdoctoral fellowship, Schlumberger Faculty for the Future fellowship, NIH MIRA Award, NSF CAREER Award, 3M NTF Award, Cottrell Scholar Award, McKnight Land-Grant Professorship, ACS Jon Sessler Award for Emerging Leaders in Bioinorganic and Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry, and Paul Saltman Award in Bioinorganic Chemistry.

Gen Chen is an associate professor of the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University. He received his BS (2009) and MS (2012) in Materials Science from Central South University and PhD (2016) in Chemical and Materials Engineering from New Mexico State University. During 2014–2015, he conducted research at the Chemistry Division of Los Alamos National Lab. He carried out postdoctoral research at University of California, Los Angeles (2016–2018). His research interests focus on electrolyte engineering and interfacial chemistry for lithium metal batteries, and the regeneration of ternary cathodes.

Hui Chen received his PhD in materials science from Jilin University (China) in June 2018, and completed postdoctoral training at its College of Chemistry (2018–2022). He is currently a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry in Jilin University. His research interests are in catalytic materials for water electrolysis technologies. Some achievements include (i) development of iridium-based catalysts to reduce Ir loading in proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers, and (ii) large-area synthesis of highly active and stable nickel-based electrodes for alkaline water electrolyzers.

Anindita Das earned her MSc in Chemistry from the University of Calcutta (2009) and her PhD from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), India (2014), under Professor Suhrit Ghosh. Subsequently, she conducted postdoctoral research as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow with Professor Patrick Theato at the University of Hamburg, Germany, followed by work with Professor E. W. Meijer at the Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands. In 2017, she joined IACS, where she is now an Associate Professor. Her research interests include precision (macro)molecular assemblies employing halogen-bonding, crystallization-driven polymer assemblies, controlled supramolecular polymerization of π-systems, and functional degradable polymers.

Sascha Feldmann studied Chemistry at Heidelberg University (Germany) and completed his PhD in Physics at the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2020, where he continued to work as an independent EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow. In July 2022, Sascha started his own group at Harvard University through a Rowland Fellowship. Since 2024 he is a tenure-track assistant professor and Head of the Laboratory for Energy Materials at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, while also remaining affiliated as an SCR member of Winthrop House at Harvard.

Prof. Megan E. Fieser obtained her PhD in 2015 from the University of California, Irvine, working under the supervision of Prof. William J. Evans. She then conducted postdoctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, under the supervision of Prof. William B. Tolman, as part of the NSF Center for Sustainable Polymers. In 2018, Fieser joined the faculty in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Southern California as a Gabilan Assistant Professor. Her research focuses on developing catalytic strategies to address challenges in plastic circularity.

Greeshma Gadikota is currently a Professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University. Prior to this position, she served on the faculty at Cornell University. Her PhD and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering and Operations Research, respectively, are from Columbia University. Her BS in Chemical Engineering is from Michigan State University. She directs the Sustainable Energy and Resource Recovery Group which develops novel chemical pathways for producing energy carriers and recovering metals with inherent emissions valorization. Her work has been recognized by DOE, NSF, and ARO CAREER awards, and a Sigma Xi Young Investigator Award to list a few.

Kaoru Hiramoto obtained her PhD in 2022 from Tohoku University, Japan, under the supervision of Prof. Hitoshi Shiku. She then began her career as an assistant professor at the Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University. She is currently also conducting research at Imperial College London as a visiting researcher. Her research interests broadly include electrochemical sensing for cells and biomolecules, with her group currently focusing specifically on lipid membrane research.

Dr Tingzheng Hou is an Assistant Professor at Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School. He received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the data- and AI-driven design of novel energy storage materials, with a particular emphasis on solid-state battery materials. He has authored or co-authored 48 peer-reviewed research papers with total citations of over 8000. He has received the First-Class Natural Science Award from the Ministry of Education of China and the China Top Cited Author Award from IOP Publishing. He actively contributes to the Materials Project.

Wu Li is a professor at Wuhan University, one of the most beautiful universities in China. He received his PhD in 2015 from Wuhan University under the supervision of Prof. Aiwen Lei. In 2016–2021, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Matthias Beller in Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT Rostock). In 2022, he obtained a professor position in College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences (CCMS) of Wuhan University. His current research interest is catalytic deuterium labeling. His research strategy is the controllable generation of surface-active deuterium species for efficient and highly selective deuterium labelling.

Prof. Dr Yangming Lin received his PhD degree from the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016, and then became a researcher at Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Energiekonversion (Germany). Since 2021, he returned to the Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences as a full professor, where he leads a research group on energy catalysis and conversion. His main research interests are catalytic reaction mechanisms and device assembly and technology development in the hydrogen energy field.

Pai Liu is an assistant professor at the Tiangong University, China. She received her PhD degree in 2020 from the Beijing Institute of Technology under the supervision of Professor Yuping Dong and Zhengxu Cai. Meanwhile, she was a visiting PhD student financed by China Scholarship Council under the supervision of Professor Jong Seung Kim at Korea University. In 2021, she started her independent research career, focusing on the field of aggregation induced emission photosensitizers and sonosensitizers. Now, she also concentrates on the photodynamic electrospun dressings emerging in diabetic foot repair.

Arup Mukherjee obtained his PhD from IISER Kolkata under the supervision of Prof. Swadhin K. Mandal. Soon after this, he joined the group of Prof. David Milstein at the Weizmann Institute of Science for postdoctoral studies. Subsequently, he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to work with Prof. Christopher C. Cummins as a Fulbright-Nehru postdoctoral fellow. He began his independent career in the Department of Chemistry at IIT Bhilai, where he has been serving as an Associate Professor. His research interests include inorganic and organometallic chemistry and their application in catalysis.

Zachariah A. Page is an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, where his group develops light-driven methods to create and manipulate plastics. He earned a BS in Chemistry from Juniata College and a PhD in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Todd Emrick. He then completed postdoctoral training with Craig Hawker at UC Santa Barbara. Since joining UT Austin in 2018, he has advanced photopolymerizations, created robust rubbers, and pioneered visible light 3D printing, publishing 90+ papers and 18 patents. His honors include PECASE, Sloan, Camille Dreyfus, and Cottrell Scholar awards.

Cody Ross Pitts received a BS in Chemistry with minors in Physics and Musical Theatre from Monmouth University in 2010, conducting research with Prof. Massimiliano Lamberto. In 2017, he received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from Johns Hopkins under the tutelage of Prof. Thomas Lectka. Thereafter, Cody conducted research in inorganic chemistry with Prof. Antonio Togni at ETH Zürich (ETH Postdoctoral Fellow, 2017–2019) and total synthesis with Prof. Phil Baran at TSRI (NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, 2019–2021). In July 2021, Cody began his independent career at UC Davis, establishing an eclectic program melding reagent design, method development, mechanistic studies, and synthesis.

Zhi-bei Qu is an associate professor at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Fudan University. He received his PhD degree in chemistry from East China Normal University in 2018, in affiliation with a joint-PhD program in chemical engineering at University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). He then joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University as a postdoctoral researcher. At Fudan University, he leads an interdisciplinary research group spanning chemical biology, medicinal chemistry, and theoretical chemistry. His current research focuses on developing innovative tools for novel drug discovery, with particular emphasis on self-assembly, phase separations, and biointerfaces.

Patricia Rodriguez-Macia obtained her PhD in 2017 from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion (MPI-CEC), Germany. She pursued postdoctoral research with Prof. Serena DeBeer at MPI-CEC and Prof. Kylie Vincent at the University of Oxford. In 2021, she was awarded a Glasstone Research Fellowship to begin her independent career at Oxford. Since 2023, she has been a Lecturer/Assistant Professor at the University of Leicester. Patricia received the 2022 RSC IBDG Early Career Researcher Award, recognising her as a rising star in bioinorganic chemistry. Her research investigates energy-conversion metalloenzymes to inspire the development of biohybrid catalysts for energy sustainability.

Wen Shao is a professor of chemistry at Xiangtan University. He received his BS degree from Tongji University in 2012 and obtained his PhD degree under the supervision of Prof. Shu-Li You from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, in 2017. After that, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr Martin Klussmann at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung and with Prof. Clément Mazet at the University of Geneva. In 2021, he started his independent research career at Xiangtan University, focusing on developing highly selective catalysts for the synthesis of nitrogen/sulfur-containing organic molecules and depolymerization of waste plastics.

Mercedes Taylor has been an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Maryland (UMD) since 2021. Prior to joining the UMD faculty, she earned a BA in chemistry from Amherst College and a PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and she worked as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health and at Sandia National Labs. Her research group at the University of Maryland designs supramolecular cages and framework materials to accomplish challenging chemical separations.

Filipa A. Vicente received her BSc in Biochemistry (2012) and MSc in Clinical Biochemistry (2014) from the University of Aveiro, Portugal. She completed her PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2019 at the same university, with research stays at the University of São Paulo (Brazil) and University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). She is currently a tenure-track Research Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Chemistry (NIC), Ljubljana, where she leads the Process and Product Engineering for Pharmaceutical and Food Industry group. Her research focuses on sustainable downstream processing and the use of green solvents (biosolvents, ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents) for circular biorefinery development and the extraction of high-value compounds.

Kang Wang received his PhD in physical chemistry in 2019 from the Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS), under the supervision of Prof. Jiannian Yao and Prof. Yong Sheng Zhao. He subsequently joined the group of Prof. Letian Dou at Purdue University as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In late 2023, he returned to ICCAS to begin his independent research career. His research interests focus on the development of advanced organic and organic–inorganic hybrid light-emitting materials for lasing applications, with particular emphasis on electrically pumped lasers based on these solution-processable semiconductors.

Dr Julia Widom obtained her PhD in physical chemistry at the University of Oregon in 2013 under the supervision of Dr Andrew Marcus. She then joined the lab of Dr Nils Walter at the University of Michigan as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2018, she started her independent career as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oregon. Her research program focuses on fluorescence-based studies of RNA folding and RNA-protein interactions and photophysical characterization of the probes used for those measurements.

Xingxing Wu received his Master's degree from East China Normal University under Prof. Junliang Zhang and completed his PhD with Prof. Yonggui Robin Chi at Nanyang Technological University. He then worked as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Christof Sparr at the University of Basel. Since 2022, he has established a research group at Guizhou University. His research interests include catalyst-controlled construction of heteroatom-stereogenic centers (e.g., N, S, P), functionalization of inert C–H bonds via small-molecule catalysis, and preparation of (chiral) functional molecules for green pesticide development.

Dr Kexue Xia received her bachelor degree at Southwest University in 2014 and obtained PhD in 2020 at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) under the super-vision of Prof. Dr Jiping Chen and Prof. Dr Haijun Zhang. After a 6 months’ research stay at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, in 2021, she began her independent research career at College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing Medical University. Her research mainly focuses on the analytical chemistry and medicinal chemistry.

Dr Fu Yang received his PhD degree from Nanjing Tech University in industrial catalysis in 2018. He is a full professor and head of the department of Energy and Chemical Engineering in Jiangsu University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on heterogeneous catalysis for the synthesis of fine chemicals and ammonia, and coupled environmental comprehensive treatments such as gas adsorption, advanced oxidation processes and photothermal water evaporation. He has published more than 100 papers with over 3000 total citations.

Prof. Dr Fengshou Yu received his PhD under the co-guidance of Prof. Licheng Sun and Fei Li from Dalian University of Technology in 2017. From February 2017 to February 2019, he worked as Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Amsterdam with Prof. Joost N. H. Reek. Since May 2019, he has been working at Hebei University of Technology as an independent researcher. Now, he is focusing on developing heterogeneous catalysts for electrochemical conversion of the energy-related small molecules such as CO₂ and nitrate.

Guocan Yu received his PhD in Chemistry from Zhejiang University in 2015, and then he spent five years at the National Institutes of Health as a postdoctoral research fellow. He joined the Department of Chemistry at Tsinghua University to start his independent research career in 2020 as an assistant professor. His research interests are mainly focused on the development of supramolecular functional materials and drug/gene delivery systems. He was selected as a “Highly Cited Researcher” by Clarivate Analytics in 2020 to 2024. He works as an Associate Editor and Assistant Editor of Journal of Nanobiotechnology and Materials Today.

Hao Zhang is currently a Research Professor in the College of Energy Engineering at Zhejiang University, China. He received his PhD in Thermal Engineering from Zhejiang University in 2016, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the same institution (2017–2018). From 2019 to 2021, he was a Humboldt Research Fellow at Bielefeld University and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany. He has held his current position since February 2022. His research focuses on catalytic and plasma-assisted conversion of greenhouse gases into value-added products, as well as catalytic pyrolysis of plastic waste into liquid fuels.

Dr Mo Zhang received her PhD degree in Energy Chemistry from Xiamen University in 2021 and then became a postdoctoral fellow at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2023, she joined Prof. Yangming Lin's group as an associate professor. Her research interest is the design and development of novel nano-catalysts for energy-related catalysis.

Dr Xiaoyu Zhang is currently a professor at Jiangsu University. He received his PhD degree from Delft University of Technology under the supervision of Prof. Marnix Wagemaker in 2015. From 2016 to 2019 he worked as an Assistant/Associate researcher in Nanjing University under the supervision of Prof. Haoshen Zhou. His research interest focuses on the fundamental aspects of material including energy storage and conversion materials, Li/Na ion battery materials, electrolyte design, characterization techniques and so on.

---