Yang Shao-Horn

Short CV

Professor Shao-Horn is the JR East Professor of Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). She earned her Ph.D. degree from Michigan Technological University in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and joined M.I.T. faculty in 2002. Professor Shao-Horn’s research is centered on exploiting physical chemistry principles to understand and design charge transfer and dynamics at interfaces, critical to enable energy solutions for grand climate challenges. Professor Shao-Horn is a member of National Academy of Engineering, and is among top five most cited female researchers in chemistry in the world, and Highly Cited Researchers (Thomson Reuters) based on ~400 archival journal papers (~70,000 citations and h-index of 127 on Google Scholar) She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Electrochemical Society, the National Academy of Inventors and the International Society of Electrochemistry. She has advised 100+ students and postdocs at MIT, who are now pursuing successful careers in industry including Telsa, Amazon and Apple, national research laboratories, and academia (~40) for US, Europe and Asia.

Selected Awards

• Humbolt Prize in Chemistry from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation 2020
• Dr. Karl Wamsler Innovation Award from the Technical University of Munich 2020
• Faraday Medal from Royal Society of Chemistry (2018)
• Battery Research Award of the Electrochemistry Society (2016)

Research Interests

Professor Shao-Horn and coworkers have pioneered the use of electronic/phononic structures to develop guiding principles of kinetics, ion mobility and dynamics to enhance functions across a number of applications spanning from making of sustainable fuels and chemicals from reduction of water, CO₂ or nitrogen, to high-energy lithium batteries. Research programs include experimental and computational components including synthesis, (electro)chemical measurements, synchrotron X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy, electron- and light-based imaging and spectroscopy, high-throughput experiments, Density Functional Theory computation and machine learning. The research is highly interdisciplinary and involving close collaborations with other universities and private/public sectors in the world.

Selected Publications

1. S. Yuan, J. Peng, B. Cai, Z. Huang, A.T. Garcia-Esparza, D. Sokaras, Y. Zhang, L. Giordano, K. Akkiraju, Y. Zhu, R. Hubner, X. Zou, Y. Roman-Leshkov and Y. Shao-Horn, Tunable Metal-Hydroxide-Organic Frameworks for Catalyzing Oxygen Evolution, Nature Materials, 21, 673-680, February 2022.
2. T. Wang, Y. Zhang, B. Huang, B. Cai, R.R.  Rao, L. Giordano, S.G. Sun and Y. Shao-Horn, Enhancing the Catalysis of Oxygen Reduction Reaction via Tuning Interfacial Hydrogen Bonds, Nature Catalysis, 4, 753-762, September 2021.
3. J. Hwang, R.R. Rao, L. Giordano, K. Akkiraju, X.R. Wang, E. Crumlin and Y. Shao-Horn, Regulating oxygen activity of perovskites to promote NO_x oxidation, Nature Catalysis, 4, 663-673, July 2021.
4. R.R. Rao, M.J. Kolb, L. Giordano, A. F. Pederson, Y. Katayama, J. Hwang, A. Mehta, H. You, J.R. Lunger, H. Zhou, N.B. Halck, T. Vegge, I. Chorkendorff, I.E.L. Stephens, and Y. Shao-Horn, Operando Identification of Site-Dependent Water Oxidation Activity on Ruthenium Dioxide Single-Crystal Surfaces, Nature Catalysis, 3, 516-525, May 2020.
5. A. Grimaud, O. Diaz-morales, B.H. Han, W. T. Hong, Y.L. Lee, L. Giordano, K. A. Stoerzinger, M.T.M. Koper, Y. Shao-Horn, Activating lattice oxygen redox reactions in metal oxides to catalyze oxygen evolution, Nature Chemistry, 9, 457-465 May 2017.
6. D. Kwabi, V.S. Bryantsev, T.P. Batcho, D. Itkis, C.V. Thompson and Y. Shao-Horn, Experimental and Computational Analysis of the Solvent-Dependent O₂/Li⁺-O₂^- Redox Couple: Standard Potentials, Coupling Strength and Implications for Lithium-Oxygen Batteries, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 128, 3181-3186 February 2016.
7. B. Han, C.E. Carlton, A. Kongkanand, R.S. Kukreja, B.R.C. Theobald, L. Gan, R. O'Malley, P. Strasser, F.T. Wagner, and Y. Shao-Horn, Record Activity and Stability of Dealloyed Bimetallic Catalysts for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells, Energy & Environmental Science, 8, 258-266 2015.
8. J. Suntivich, H.A. Gasteiger, N. Yabuuchi, H. Nakanishi, J.B. Goodenough and Y. Shao-Horn, Design Principles for Oxygen Reduction Activity on Perovskite Oxide Catalysts for Fuel Cells and Metal-Air Batteries, Nature Chemistry, 3, 546–550 2011.
9. J. Suntivich, K.J. May, H.A. Gasteiger, J.B. Goodenough and Y. Shao-Horn, A Perovskite Oxide Optimized for Oxygen Evolution Catalysis from Molecular Orbital Principles, Science, 334, 1383-1385 2011.
10. Y. L.  Lee, J. Kleis, J. Rossmeisl, Y. Shao-Horn and D. Morgan, Prediction of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Cathode Activity with First-Principles Descriptors, Energy & Environmental Science, 4, 3966-3970 2011.