February 16, 2011

by Benjamin White

Former NQPI professor Liwei Chen has taken his expertise in nanoscience 10,000 miles to his home in China, where he heads the International Laboratory (i-LAB) and is currently the vice director of the Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-bionics (SINANO), part of the larger Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Liwei, who earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard in 2001 after obtaining master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Peking University and the University of Science and Technology in China, respectively, worked as an assistant professor in Ohio University’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and was a member of NQPI from 2004 to 2008.

Now, he runs an important research institute in Jiangsu, one of the most economically vibrant provinces in China. He oversees the research activity of SINANO, which employs more than 700 personnel, through strategic planning and active grant administration. SINANO entered phase II construction in 2010 and will actively recruit research talents to expand its engineering and translational research in the next three years.

Liwei credits NQPI as an example of administrating interdisciplinary research with great success and has modeled some aspects of SINANO after NQPI. Furthermore, Liwei said NQPI made his time at Ohio University much more enjoyable.

“I have made friends with professors across multiple disciplines and various departments,” he said. “Overall, [NQPI] added a lot to my experience at OU.”

Liwei’s research group is currently focusing on interfacial nanomaterials and their applications in solar energy harvesting, lithium ion batteries, nanocomposite fibers and nano-bio interfaces. Their research has led to the development of quantitative electric force and dielectric force microscopies used to study individual single-walled carbon nanotubes. The research team has recently achieved one of the highest efficiency organic/inorganic hybrid solar cells in the world.

The Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-bionics also hosted the fifth Sino-US Nano Forum, which was held on June 5-7, 2010.