Prof. He Yan

PhD, Northwestern University

Areas of Expertise：

New Energy

Details：

Chair Professor, Department of Chemistry

Director, HKUST-Kaisa Joint Research Institute

Director, HKUST Energy Institute

Founding Member, Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)

PhD in Chemistry, Northwestern University

 

Teaching Experience：

Professor He Yan is currently Chair Professor in the Department of Chemistry at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Director of the HKUST-Kaisa Joint Research Institute, and Associate Director of the HKUST Energy Institute. He received his PhD in Chemistry from Northwestern University (USA) in 2004. Before returning to Hong Kong, he served as Vice President of Product Development at Polyera Corporation, a world-leading organic electronics company, where he drove multiple technologies toward commercialization. Upon joining HKUST, he rapidly built a world-class research team focused on energy materials and devices as well as technology translation.

Research Interests and Key Achievements:

Professor He Yan is dedicated to the research, development, and industrialization of organic and perovskite photovoltaic technologies, as well as lithium battery materials. The polymer semiconductor material N2200 developed by Professor Yan's team was featured on the cover of Nature and was referred to as the "new transistor age". Professor Yan's team at HKUST has repeatedly broken world records for organic photovoltaic efficiency. In 2015, HKUST became the first Chinese university listed in the "Solar Cell Efficiency Tables," a global benchmark for photovoltaic performance.

In 2020, Professor Yan received the Tencent Xplorer Prize, one of Hong Kong's first three scientists to earn this honor. The same year, he was selected as an inaugural RGC Research Fellow and has been consistently recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher. With prolific academic achievements in energy materials, Professor Yan has published over 300 papers with more than 40,000 citations. He was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the First World Energy Materials Conference and ranked first globally among young scientists for academic contributions to energy research.

Professor Yan also boasts extensive industrial experience as a pioneer in China's new photovoltaic technology commercialization. His startup has won top awards in entrepreneurship competitions, including the champion at the 2019 "One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition" co-hosted by HKUST and Yuexiu Group.