We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Energies 2023 Young Investigator Award is Dr. Yi Zheng.

Dr. Yi Zheng is an Associate Professor of mechanical engineering, leading a growing research group focusing on nanoenergy in multiple disciplines, including materials science, physics, and engineering, at Northeastern University, USA. He has been selected as a NASA Faculty Fellowship recipient by the NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, twice, in the years 2021 and 2023. Dr. Zheng was also awarded the NSF Faculty Early Career Award, ASTFE Early Career Researcher Award, Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council Award, and other prestigious awards for his significant contributions to the fields related to energy. He emphasizes the basic and applied study of small-scale thermal transport through multifunctional materials with advanced thermal, optical, and electromagnetic properties, superhydrophobicity, self-adaptivity, high-temperature resistance, and fire-retardant features. These materials can be applied in the areas of power generation, energy harvesting, thermophotovoltaics, passive radiative cooling, solar desalination, thermo rectification, and nanoscale opto-thermal as well as bio-chemical sensing. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Yi Zheng for his outstanding achievements.

As the awardee, Dr. Yi Zheng will receive an honorarium of CHF 2000, an offer to publish a paper free of charge in Energies (ISSN: 1996-1073) following peer review before 31 December 2024, and an electronic certificate.

We would like to thank all the nominators for their participation, and all the Award Committee Members for their evaluation of many excellent nominations.