Nano Research

Tsinghua University Press and Springer Nature honor two of the world’s leading experts in nanoscience and nanotechnology

Two outstanding scientists have been awarded the annual Nano Research Award which is sponsored by Tsinghua University Press (TUP) and Springer Nature. Yi Cui is the Professor at the Stanford University. Robert Langer is the Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Both winners have been invited to give keynote speeches at the Sino-US Forum on Nanoscale Science and Technology.

Professor Yi Cui

Professor Yi Cui won the Nano Research Award for his pioneering contributions on nanomaterials design for energy and environment, particularly on battery technology and its commercialization. Prof. Yi Cui is currently the director of the Precourt Institute for Energy and the founding director of Sustainability Accelerator at Stanford University. He is also the co-director of the StorageX Initiative, Battery500 Consortium and Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium. And he is the Fortinet Founders Professor of materials science and engineering, and energy science and engineering. As a distinguished researcher in nanotechnology for better batteries and other sustainability materials technologies, Cui has published more than 550 studies and is currently one of the world’s most cited scientists with H-index 254 (Google). In 2014 he was ranked NO.1 worldwide in Materials Science by Thomas Reuters. He has founded five high-tech companies to commercialize technologies from his lab: Amprius (AMPX in NYSE), 4C Air, EEnotech LifeLabs Design and EnerVenue Inc. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, fellow of the Materials Research Society, fellow of the Electrochemical Society, and fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. His selected honors include Global Energy Prize (2021), Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award (2021), Materials Research Society Medal (2020), Electrochemical Society Battery Technology Award (2019) and Blavatnik National Laureate (2017). Throughout the entire career, he has greatly promoted the fundamentals and applications of nanomaterials in energy storage, photovoltaic devices, topological insulators, biology and environment, et al. The commercialization of these breakthrough technologies has made real impact on society.

Professor Robert Langer

Professor Robert Langer was selected for the award in recognition of his seminal contributions to developing long-term and controlled-release drug delivery systems for a variety of applications, including cancer therapy, insulin, and vaccines. Robert Langer is one of 9 Institute Professors at MIT, the highest honor bestowed on a faculty member. He has written more than 1,500 articles, that are currently cited over 388,000 times; his h-index of 309 is the highest of any engineer in history and tied for the fourth highest of any individual in any field. His patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies. Langer served as Chairman of the FDA’s Science Board (its highest advisory board) from 1999-2002. His over 220 awards include both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (he is one of three living individuals to have received both these honors), the Charles Stark Draper Prize (often called the engineering Nobel Prize), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (the American Chemical Society's highest award), Gairdner Prize, the Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, the Balzan prize, and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine. He holds 41 honorary doctorates and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors. His contributions to targeted drug delivery systems and tissue engineering have advanced the global medical innovation industry and he is one of the most important and future-changing scientists in biotechnology.

The Nano Research Award, established by the journal Nano Research together with TUP and Springer Nature in 2013, is awarded for outstanding contributions to nano research by an individual scientist. The winner is selected by the Award Committee (the Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors, representatives from TUP and Springer Nature) after receiving nominations from the members of the Nano Research Editorial Board. The first fourteen recipients of the honor were Prof. Charles M. Lieber of Harvard University, Prof. Paul Alivisatos and Prof. Peidong Yang, both of the University of California Berkeley, Prof. Yi Xie of University of Science and Technology of China, Prof. Lei Jiang of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. Chad Mirkin of Northwestern University, Prof. Xinhe Bao of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. Omar M. Yaghi of the University of California Berkeley, Prof. Dongyuan Zhao of Fudan University, Prof. John A. Rogers of Northwestern University, Prof. Zhongfan Liu of Peking University, Prof. Cees Dekker of Delft University of Technology, Prof. Hongjie Dai of Stanford University, Prof. Zhong Lin Wang of Georgia Institute of Technology.