Congratulations to Professor Chong Liu on his promotion to full professor, effective July 1, 2026.
Since joining UCLA in 2017, Liu has established an internationally recognized research program focused on electrochemical interfaces for energy, environmental, and biological applications. One research focus of the research group is the materials-biology interface, which studies the charge-transfer and incurred metabolic responses at such interfaces. The other recent foray is the development of autonomous electrochemistry, conducting electrochemical research autonomously with the aid of automation and artificial intelligence.
Liu received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Fudan University, China, where he synthesized mesoporous materials with Professor Dongyuan Zhao. He then pursued his graduate research at the University of California, Berkeley, working with Professor Peidong Yang, and received his Ph.D. in Chemistry. Afterward, Liu continued his career as a Lee Kuan Yew Postdoctoral Fellow working with Professor Daniel Nocera at Harvard University and Professor Pamela Silver at Harvard Medical School. At Harvard, he combined the strengths of biology and inorganic chemistry to develop inorganic–bio hybrid systems for solar-driven CO₂ and N₂ fixation with efficiencies higher than their natural counterparts.
Since 2024, Liu has served as the associate editor of peer-reviewed journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. He is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute.
Liu’s recent honors and awards include the Scialog Fellow in both Automating Chemical Laboratory (AUT, 2024-2026) and Negative Emission Science (NES, 2020-2022), 2022 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship; the NSF CAREER Award (National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program); the 2020 NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA); and recognition as MIT Technology Review China‘s 2020 Innovators Under 35, which honors exceptional young innovators with significant technological impact. Earlier in his career, Liu was named one of Science News’ “SN 10: Scientists to Watch” (2017), a national recognition of emerging scientific talent.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
