Chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Ying Diao has received a Campus Distinguished Promotion award by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost. She will become a full professor in August, pending approval by the Board of Trustees.
Provost John Coleman said Diao was recommended for the award “based on the scope, quality, and impact of [her] scholarship, teaching, and service. [Her] accomplishments stood out as particularly notable in a context where virtually all cases reviewed were excellent.”
Diao joined The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 2015, where she is a Dow Chemical Company Faculty Scholar (2015) and was recently named the University Scholar in 2023. Diao group focuses on understanding the assembly of functional polymer and innovating printing approaches that enable structural control down to the molecular and nanoscale to achieve a future of cleaner environment and greener energy. She serves as the co-chair of Molecular Science and Engineering at the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology and thrust lead of the Molecular Maker Lab Institute – a National Science Foundation (NSF) Artificial Intelligence Institute. She has received many awards for her work, including being named a Technology Review Innovators Under 35 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016), the NSF CAREER Award (2018), the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry (2018), the NASA Early Career Faculty Award (2020), and AIChE Owens Corning Early Career Award (2024).
Diao is one of only 11 faculty members from across campus who received this honor, four of whom are also promoted to full professor and seven to associate professor.