Ying Diao’s research pursues the fundamental understanding and control of multiscale molecular assembly processes to achieve manufacturing of electronical materials, energy devices, and therapeutic processes. Her goal is to use solution printing to make advanced materials such as electronic papers, solar cells, and medicines. She is working to decipher how molecules self-assemble into functional materials to develop device methods to control the molecular assembly process. Additionally, in her research, she repurposed a failed cancer drug into a new type of organic semiconductor for use in transistors and chemical sensors.
Diao received her BSE from Tsinghua University in 2006. She received her MS and PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008 and 2011. She worked as a Post Doctoral Associate in 2011-2014 at Stanford University & SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Materials Science Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is also an Assistant Professor at Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.