Stephen Z.D. Cheng

Prof. Cheng is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (US), the former Dean of the College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering at the University of Akron, appointed as Frank C. Sullivan Distinguished Research Professor, Trustees and Robert C. Musson Professor at the University of Akron. He is currently Dean and Honorable Professor of the School of Emergent Soft Matter and the South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, South China University of Technology.

His research interests center on the condensed matters in polymers, liquid crystals,

surfactants and hybrid materials, and focuses on the interactions, responses, dynamics, and structures of materials on varying length, energy and time scales in which the material itself embodies the technology. His research activities include investigations of transition thermodynamics and kinetics in metastable states, ordered structures and morphologies, surface and interface structures in electronic and optical materials and advanced functional hybrid materials. He has published more than 700 academic research articles with citation number of 94.

He has received the Presidential Young Investigator Award (1991), the John H. Dillon Medal of the American Physical Society (1995), the Mettler-Toledo Award of the North American Thermal Analysis Society (1999), the TA-Instrument Award of the International Confederation for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (2004), the Collaborative Research Award of the Division of Polymer Materials Science and Engineering of the American Chemical Society (2005), Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society (2013), International Award of the Society of Polymer Science of Japan (2017), Qian Baojun Distinguished Fiber Achievement Award (2023), among many other academic awards. He has elected as Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Physical Society (APS), PMSE American Chemical Society (ACS), Honorary Fellow of Chinese Chemical Society (CCS), National Academy of Inventors (NAI, US) and others.