Featured speakers: Merging polymer structure with dynamics

After her postdoctoral studies in carbohydrate chemistry at Iowa State University, she moved to Fudan University in Dec. 2008, where she joined the research group of Prof. Ming Jiang, MCAS in macromolecular self-assembly as a lecturer, working on the interface of macromolecular self-assembly and supramolecular chemistry. After she was promoted to associate professor in 2011, her research focus has been reoriented to carbohydrate-based macromolecular self-assembly and its biological functions. She was promoted to full professor in 2014. As a corresponding author, she published more than 60 papers to date. She was elected as Fellow of Royal Chemical Society (FRSC) and now serves as an Associate Editor of ACS Macro Letters and an international board member for Polymer Chemistry, Bioconjugate Chemistry, Polymer International, Journal of Macromolecular Science, Part A and etc.

She served as the Director of State Key Lab of Polymer Physics and Chemistry from 2005 to 2015.  She was selected to 100-Talent program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2000 and got National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in 2001.  She received the first Prize of Jilin Science and Technology Progress in 2010. Her current research interests include polymer thin film, inherent structure−property -processing relations of conjugated polymers.

During his thesis study at Kyoto University, he visited National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA, twice as a guest scientist for performing the small angle neutron scattering experiments under the guidance of Dr. Charles C. Han. In 1993, he joined the Japan Science & Technology Agency (JST) ERATO (Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology) program, Hashimoto Polymer Phasing Project, as a group leader. He was appointed Lecturer at the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering of Kyoto Institute of Technology in 1998 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2002. In 2011, He moved to another ERATO program, Takahara Soft Interfaces Project, as a research manager. He was concurrently a Research Professor at the Institute of Materials Chemistry and Engineering (IMCE), Kyushu University. In 2015, he moved to Tohoku University. His research field includes polymer physics, soft matter physics, and development of characterization methodology. Specifically, he is widely recognized by his development of electron tomography (3D electron microscopy). He was awarded the SPSJ (The Society of Polymer Science, Japan) Wiley Award in 2006. He is the first Japanese to win the biannual Ernst-Ruska-Prize in 2007 from the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Elektronenmikroskopie (German Society of Electron Microscopy). He is also the recipient of The Japanese Society of Microscopy Society Award, Setoh Prize (2012), The Award of the Society of Polymer Science, Japan (2017) etc. He is the Fellow of American Physical Society (APS) since 2011. Professor Jinnai has co-authored more than 200 scientific papers.

He was promoted to associate and full professor in 2007, and 2011, respectively. His group studies ordered polymeric systems, including crystalline, liquid crystalline and block copolymers, for energy storage and biomedical applications.

Christopher Li is a Fellow of American Physical Society and North American Thermal Analysis Society, and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of Polymer, Macromolecules (14-17), etc. He has received several awards including the NSF Creativity Award, NSF-CAREER Award, Outstanding Oversea Young Scientist, National Science Foundation of China, Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, ASM Bradley Stoughton Award, DuPont Young Faculty Award, among others. He served as the President of the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS) in 2016.

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After a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 and later the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1997, Prof. Tsui joined the Department of Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 1998. In 2006, she joined the Department of Physics at Boston University as an Associate Professor, and was promoted to be a full Professor in 2011. Since 2017, she has also been appointed a Professor of Physics in HKUST.

Prof. Tsui was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2011. Currently, she is an advisory board member of Macromolecules and Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics. She is also the Chairman of the Council, the Physical Society of Hong Kong (2018-20). Prof. Tsui has co-edited three books in polymers, and co-organized several focused sessions on polymer interfaces and dynamics under confinement in major international conferences, such as the APS March Meeting and the Society of Rheology Annual Meeting.

Prof. Tsui’s research interests are primarily in experimental soft condensed matter, with a focus on the dynamics of polymers under nano-confinement. In collaboration with theorists and experimentalists of other disciplines, she also works on the crystallization kinetics of polymer surfaces, the nature of glass transition, and mechanics of cancer cells.