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Department of Materials Science and Engineering • April 2023

MSE@UCI Spotlight on Assistant Professors Liza Lee and Kai He

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Irvine welcomes two new faculty members. We look forward to seeing them thrive in the Samueli School of Engineering.
Elizabeth M. Y. Lee is also an assistant professor of materials science and engineering. Prior to UCI, she completed her postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago, where she developed first-principles computational frameworks with neural networks to investigate chemical bonding dynamics and equilibria in solid-state materials, including spin defects in semiconductors and metal surfaces. In her Ph.D. at MIT, she studied nanoscale energy transport phenomena in molecular semiconductors, such as colloidal quantum dots and conjugated polymers, to design next-generation photovoltaics and LEDs. Her awards include the DOE Leadership Computing Challenge Award, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, American Institute of Chemical Engineers Electronics and Photonics Materials Award, the University of Chicago Mentoring Award and the UCI Samueli Faculty Development Chair.

In the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Lees’ research interests lie within the broad field of computational materials and chemistry, particularly electronic and chemical processes in solid-state and nanostructured semiconductors. Her research aims to bring fundamental understanding of how the dynamical arrangement of atoms and their electronic structure impact the material-wide properties during their synthesis, processing and device operating conditions. Her current research activities focus on three areas: quantum point defects in semiconductors, solid-state interfaces in materials for energy applications, and methodological developments for materials modeling using machine learning approaches.
Kai He joined the department as an assistant professor in January 2022. Prior to UCI, he was an assistant professor at Clemson University and a research assistant professor at Northwestern University. He obtained his doctorate from Arizona State University and postdoctoral training at University of Maryland and Brookhaven National Laboratory. His research focuses on the development of advanced electron microscopy methodologies and their applications in nanostructured multifunctional materials for quantum information sciences and clean energy technologies. He has authored and co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications in peer-reviewed journals. He has been recognized by multiple prestigious academic awards, including NSF CAREER Award (2023), DOE Early Career Award (2021), ACS Petroleum Research Fund New Investigator Award (2021), and NSF Estab­lished Program to Stim­u­late Com­pet­i­tive Research Track-4 Fellowship for Early Career Faculty (2019), among others.
 
In the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, He is building his research program closely connected with IMRI and CCAM (an NSF MRSEC at UCI). The He Lab envisions addressing key challenges at the intersection of materials, energy and sustainability. The team will leverage advanced in-situ, analytical and cryogenic TEM techniques to enable new research on solid-state batteries, 2D quantum materials and nanostructured catalysts. The He Lab is committed to providing diverse and interdisciplinary environments for STEM education and workforce development, and welcomes interested undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral researchers to join the team. Please visit He’s website (https://helab.eng.uci.edu/) for additional information.