Yuan Ping, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC Santa Cruz, has received an OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award in Computational Chemistry from the Computers in Chemistry (COMP) Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
The OpenEye award program provides funding for up to four outstanding tenure-track junior faculty members to present their work in the COMP division at the Spring 2021 ACS National Meeting, which will be held online. The highly competitive awards are intended to identify junior stars in the field and to assist new faculty members in gaining visibility within the COMP community.
Ping’s research focuses on developing and employing advanced theoretical and computational techniques to solve problems related to energy conversion and quantum information science. Her research group uses theoretical and computational methods to understand and predict the properties of complex materials, including optical, spin, electron transport, and catalytic properties at the atomic levels.
Current research topics include electronic excitation and spin dynamics, polaronic conduction in complex oxides, and catalytic reactions at solid-liquid interfaces. The aim is to tightly connect theoretical and computational predictions with experimental observations by identifying important theoretical questions whose answers will eventually provide guidance to experiments and suggestions for new materials with superior functional properties.
Ping received her B.S. in chemical physics at the University of Science and Technology of China and her Ph.D. in physical chemistry at UC Davis. She joined the faculty at UC Santa Cruz in 2016.
