Prof. Dr. Wanlu Li currently serves as an assistant
professor of Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Nano and Chemical Engineering and an affiliate faculty member of Materials Science and Engineering Program at UC San Diego. Her research is
interdisciplinary, combining chemical engineering, chemistry, and physics. Her
group focuses on computational modeling that can be applied to molecular
clusters, materials, and catalyst realms. Dr. Li earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry
from Tsinghua University in 2019, where she conducted groundbreaking work on
heavy-element molecules and metal-doped boron clusters, introducing the concept
of boron-derived materials reminiscent of renowned carbon materials. Following
her doctoral studies, Dr. Li continued her academic journey as a postdoctoral
researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley. During
this time, she devoted her efforts to method development and theoretical
investigations across a diverse range of catalysts, including supramolecular
capsules, nitrogenase, and interface reactions. She made significant
contributions by developing pseudopotentials and basis sets, enhancing the
accuracy of density functional calculations. Dr. Li was honored with the
American Chemical Society Physical Chemistry Young Investigator Award in 2021
and the Faculty Fellowship Award from Israel in 2023.
