Biographical Notes

Jackie Y. Ying

Jackie Y. Ying was born in Taipei, and raised in Singapore and New York, and graduated with B.E. summa cum laude in Chemical Engineering from The Cooper Union in 1987.  As an AT&T Bell Laboratories Ph.D. Scholar at Princeton University, she began research in materials chemistry, linking the importance of materials processing and microstructure with the tailoring of materials surface chemistry and energetics.  She pursued research in nanocrystalline materials with Prof. Herbert Gleiter at the Institute for New Materials, Saarbrücken, Germany as NSF-NATO Post-doctoral Fellow and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow.  Prof. Ying has been on the Chemical Engineering faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1992, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1996 and to Professor in 2001.  She is currently the Executive Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), Singapore, and an Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT.  IBN is a new multidisciplinary national research institute founded in March 2003 to advance the frontiers of engineering, science and medicine; it has grown to 180 research staff and students under Prof. Ying’s leadership.  Its mission is to conduct research at the interface of bioengineering and nanotechnology.  By creating a knowledge base that bridges between molecular sciences and nanotechnology, IBN seeks to create novel nanostructured materials, devices and systems with unique functionalities and commercialization potential for biomedical applications. 

Prof. Ying’s research is interdisciplinary in nature, with a theme in the synthesis of advanced inorganic structures for catalytic, membrane, ceramic and biomaterial applications.  Her laboratory has been responsible for several novel wet-chemical and physical vapor synthesis approaches that create nanostructured materials with exceptional size-dependent characteristics.  In particular, Prof. Ying is interested in the engineering of surface reactivity, microstructure and thermal stability for nanoparticulate, nanoporous and nanocomposite systems.  These new materials are designed for applications ranging from the production of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the efficient use of energy and resources, the control and prevention of environmental pollution, the targeted delivery of drugs, proteins and genes, to the generation of biomimetic implants and tissue scaffolds.  Prof. Ying has authored over 160 articles, and presented over 180 invited lectures on this subject at international conferences.

Prof. Ying has been recognized with a number of research awards, including the American Ceramic Society Ross C. Purdy Award for the most valuable contribution to the ceramic technical literature during 1993, David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Royal Academy of Engineering ICI Faculty Fellowship, American Chemical Society Faculty Fellowship Award in Solid-State Chemistry, Technology Review TR100 Young Innovator Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Allan P. Colburn Award for excellence in publications, World Economic Forum Global Young Leader, and Chemical Engineering Science Peter V. Danckwerts Lectureship.  She was elected a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists, Leopoldina, in April 2005, and is currently the youngest member of the Academy.

Prof. Ying has actively engaged her discipline with the frontiers of inorganic materials as the Materials Engineering and Sciences Division Director of the AIChE, and organized a Topical Conference on Advanced Ceramics Processing at the 5th World Congress of Chemical Engineering.  She plays a leading role in the field of nanostructured materials, chaired the U.S. Department of Energy Workshop on Future Research Needs of Nanofabricated Materials (1994), and organized the Third International Conference on Nanostructured Materials (1996), the Engineering Foundation Conference on Processing and Properties of Nanostructured Materials (2000), and the First Society for Biological Engineering International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (2004).  She is Advisory Editor for Nano Today, Materials Today and Molecular and Supramolecular Science, and serves on the Editorial Board of Journal of Porous Materials, Journal of Electroceramics, Nanoparticle Science and Technology, Journal of Metastable and Nanostructured Materials, Journal of Experimental Nanoscience, Journal of Nanomaterials, Biomedical Materials: Materials for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, and Biomolecular Frontiers.  She was Editor for Advances in Chemical Engineering, Associate Editor of Acta Materialia, ScriptaMaterialia and Nanostructured Materials, and Guest Editor for Materials Science & Engineering A, Nanostructured Materials, AIChE Journal, and Chemistry of Materials.  She served on the Editorial Board of Applied Catalysis A: General, the International Advisory Board of University of Queensland Nanomaterials Centre (Australia), and the Board of Directors of Alexander von Humboldt Association of America.  She is on the International Advisory Board of Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- und Werkstoffforschung Dresden (Germany), and National Research Council Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences (Canada), and is an Honorary Professor of Jilin University (China) and Sichuan University (China).  Prof. Ying has 56 patents issued or pending.  She currently serves on the Advisory Boards of 4 start-up companies, and 1 venture capital fund.