News

2023

February

• My first-author paper on developing two-dimensional energy histogram features for machine learning has just been published online in Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation! We provided a thorough analysis of the 2D histogram features for ML prediction of adsorption in nanoporous materials and answered the question “why histogram features work better than other common features”. Check it out! PDF is available here. Online version can be accessed by this link.

January

• My first-author paper (also as the corresponding author) on the microscopic pressure/stress tensor has just been published in the Journal of Chemical Physics! The article is featured on the journal cover (link). Check it out!

• Happy New Year! My co-authored paper on MOFX-DB has been published online in Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data! Check out cool stuff in this online database and try it out in your own project!

2022

April

• The DOE BES ECN webinar on grant writing for early career scientists was a great success, with a record number of attendees over Zoom (~2000). Congratulations to the organizing committee and huge thanks to our four exceptional speakers. The recorded video and presentation slides are available on BES ECN page.
• I will be moderating the upcoming DOE BES ECN webinar: Grant Writing for Early Career Scientists. The webinar will be held on Tuesday, April 12 at 2-3pm EDT (11am-12pm PDT) on Zoom (registration link). The webinar will comprise short presentations and a live Q&A with our four panelists who will provide thoughts and best practices for securing funding from government and non-profit sources drawn from their own experiences. The webinar is free and open to the public. I look forward to seeing you over Zoom!

2021

November

• I will see you at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston! I will be giving a poster at the “Meet the Faculty Candidates Poster Session” on 11/7 (1 PM EDT, Sunday), in addition to one talk:
  11/8, Monday, 3:54 PM – 4:06 PM EDT, “Two-Dimensional Energy Histograms as Features for Machine Learning to Predict Adsorption in Metal-Organic Frameworks” at the Faculty Candidates in COMSEF/Area 1a, Session 2, Location: Marriott Copley Place - Salon A/B

October

• The team I led representing the Nanoporous Materials Genome Center was recognized as one of the nine winning teams in the 2021 Student and Postdoc Team Science Contest. Yangzesheng (Andrew) Sun and I gave an oral talk at the 2021 EFRC-Hub-CMS-CCS Virtual Principal Investigators’ Meeting. The talk title is “Integrated Computational Engineering Towards Accelerated Screening and Optimization for Nanoporous Materials”.

September

• I was invited to give a 30 mins talk at The 2nd Meeting of the Special Interest Group in Non-Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics on the uniqueness of the local pressure tensor. Recorded talk is available here.

June

• I was invited to give a 1 hour talk at the ATOMS virtual seminar on “Pressure tensor at nanoscale: theory, applications and challenges”. Recorded talk is available at ATOMS YouTube channel.
• I gave a virtual oral talk on “Two-Dimensional Energy Histograms as Features for Machine Learning to Predict Adsorption in Metal-Organic Frameworks” at 2021 Midwest Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics Conference. It was great to meet new and old friends there!

May

• I was invited to give a talk at NCSU CBE’s 2021 Spring virtual commencement ceremony. The full video can be found here.

March

• My first-authored book chapter on the current advances in characterization of nano-porous materials just got published online and here is the link to the full book! My chapter [PDF] focuses particularly on characterization of pore size distribution and specific surface area of porous materials. Classical methods, modern molecular methods and those related to machine learning techniques are all discussed!
• I was chosen as the winner for the 2020 James K. Ferrell Outstanding Ph.D. Graduate Award! This award recognizes an outstanding graduate of CBE Ph.D. program who distinguishes him/herself in scholarship, teaching and service. The winner of the Award will be invited to deliver a five-minute talk at the departmental graduation ceremony in May.

February

• My first-authored paper has been published in the Journal of Chemical Physics. The title is “Can we define a unique microscopic pressure in inhomogeneous fluids?” [PDF]. In this paper, for the first time, we show strong evidence that it is possible to define a unique microscopic pressure, a property that has been considered ambiguous at the nanoscale since 1950.

January

• I was accepted as a AAAS member through the AAAS/Science Program for Excellence in Science. This program provides me with a one-year membership for AAAS, which includes a free subscription to the digital version of Journal Science.

2020

December

• I was invited to give a talk on the uniqueness of the microscopic pressure tensor at the Statistical Mechanics & Molecular Simulations (STMS) Seminar Series, hosted by Prof. Amir Haji-Akbari (Yale) and Prof. Sapna Sarupria (Minnesota).

November

• I was invited to give a 110-minute guest lecture in the course Molecular Simulation of Materials in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University.
• The paper in collaboration with Prof. Carlos Vega’s group has been published in Journal of Chemical Physics. The title is “The Young–Laplace equation for a solid–liquid interface”.
• I gave a pre-recorded talk at the 2020 AIChE Annual Meeting and I had a great time meeting some friends there virtually!

October

• I gave a virtual poster on MOFdb at the 2020 Nanoporous Materials Genome Center (NMGC) All-Hands Meeting.

August

• I joined Prof. Randy Snurr’s group at Northwestern University as a postdoc fellow!

July

• My first-author paper has been published in J. Chem. Theory Comput.. The title is “Microscopic Pressure Tensor in Cylindrical Geometry: Pressure of Water in a Carbon Nanotube”.

May

• I successfully defended my PhD thesis!
• The paper in collaboration with Prof. Saad Khan’s group has been published in ACS Appl. Polym. Mater.. The title is “Designing Intrinsically Microporous Polymer (PIM-1) Microfibers with Tunable Morphology and Porosity via Controlling Solvent/Nonsolvent/Polymer Interactions”.

April

• Our Reply to the Comment on the microscopic pressure tensor has been published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

March

• The paper in collaboration with Prof. Stefano Menegatti’s group has been published in Journal of Materials Chemistry B. The title is “Modified gaphene oxide (GO) particles in peptide hydrogels: a hybrid system enabling scheduled delivery of synergistic combinations of chemotherapeutics”.

January

• My first-author paper has been published in Langmuir. The title is “Conformal Sites Theory for Adsorbed Films on Energetically Heterogeneous Surfaces”.
• The paper in collaboration with Prof. Gregory Parsons’s group has been published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A. The title is “Fabrication of a freestanding metal organic framework predominant hollow fiber mat and its potential applications in gas separation and catalysis”.