Younan Xia

Group Activities Group Alumni
	Leslie Au was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1982. She received her B.S. degrees in chemistry and biology from the University of Washington in 2005. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering. She is a recipient of the Early Bird Award and the IGERT Fellowship (2006-2008) from the UW Center for Nanotechnology. Her research interests include synthesis of gold nanostructures and exploration of their applications in biomedical research, electronics, and photonics.
	Alex Briseno was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He received his B.S. and M.S. from California State University, Los Angeles. In the fall of 2005, he completed his Master’s in chemistry at UCLA with Fred Wudl and co-advised by Zhenan Bao at Stanford. He is currently supported by a fellowship from the Lucent Technologies in pursuing his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry. He is particularly interested in organic semiconductor nanostructures for their potential applications as the next-generation materials for displays, flexible electronics, solar cells, and optoelectronic devices.
	Pedro Camargo was born in Ourinhos, São Paulo, Brazil, in 1981. He moved to Curitiba and began attending Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) in 1999. He received his B.S. in chemistry in 2003 and M.S. in chemistry in 2005. Since then, he has joined Prof. Younan Xia's group to pursue his Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering. His research interests include the synthesis of selenium and metal chalcogenide colloidal spheres and their use as building blocks for self-assembly to fabricate smart photonic crystals; as well as shape-controlled synthesis of magnetic nanocrystals.
	Yongping Chen was born in Anhui province, China in 1975. He received his B.S. degree from Anhui Medical University (1999). He attended University of Science and Technology of China from 2002-2007 and got his Ph.D. in the nanobiological laboratory of the Institute of Life Science under the supervision of Prof. Longping Wen. His doctoral research was mainly focused on drug delivery and cancer treatment. He joined the Xia group as a postdoctoral research associate in the fall of 2007. His interests include biomedical applications of nanoparticles, imaging and treatment of cancer, and drug delivery.
	Eun Chul Cho was born in Seoul, South Korea. He received his Ph.D. degree from Pohang University of Science and Technology in 2004. He worked for Amorepacific Corporation, a cosmetic company, until 2007. He joined the Xia group in the spring of 2008 as a postdoctoral research associate. His research interests include synthesis of colloidal nanocrystals and their application in biomedical research and cosmetics.
	Sung-Wook Choi was born in Seoul, South Korea. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at Yonsei University in 2000 and 2004, respectively. His doctoral research focused on synthesis of biodegradable block copolymers and design of functionalized nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery system. Then he worked as a senior researcher in LG Cable from 2004 to 2006 and as a research professor at Yonsei from 2006 to 2007. In spring of 2008, he joined the Xia group as a postdoctoral researcher, and is now involved in the development of biodegradable scaffolds for tissue engineering.
	Claire Cobley was born in Montreal, Canada and grew up in Cary, North Carolina. She graduated in 2006 from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island where she received a B.S. in chemistry and an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA). She is now pursuing her Ph.D. in the Xia group and was awarded an Early Bird Award to get involved in nanotechnology research during her first year. Her research interests include the synthesis, analysis, and applications of metal nanostructures.
	Eric Formo was born in Heidelberg am nicre Germany. He grew up in Alexandria Virginia, and Greensboro North Carolina. He attended North Carolina State University from 2001-2005, where he received a Honors Degree in chemistry. He also did undergraduate research for the Novak group (redox sensitive polymers), and the Kruse group (rheological characterization of hyaluronic acid derivatives). As a Ph.D. candidate in the Xia group, his research interests include electrospinning of nanofibers for tissue engineering, controlled release, and catalysis.
	Majiong Jiang was born in Zhejiang, China in 1984. He received is B.S. in 2007, from College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering in Peking University. He is currently a first-year graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. He is pursuing his Ph.D. with Professor Younan Xia. His research interests include shape-controlled synthesis of noble metal nanocrystals for applications in catalysis.
	Eric Lee was born in Ontario, Canada, and lived most of his life in Taipei, Taiwan. In 1999 he began his undergraduate studies abroad in East Sussex, England. The following year he returned to Canada and began attending Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. In 2003 he graduated with a B.SC. in mathematics and a B.SC.H. in chemistry (2004). He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering under the supervision of Younan Xia. His research projects include synthesis and utilization of metal nanostructures for applications in fields such as catalysis, fuel cells, and energy storage.
	Weiyang Li was born in Tianjin, China in 1982. She received her B.S. degree in materials chemistry from Nankai University in 2004, and then her M. S. degree in inorganic chemistry in June, 2007 from the Institute of New Energy Materials Chemistry in Nankai University. She is pursuing her Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Prof. Younan Xia in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research interest includes synthesis of novel nanomaterials and development of new contrast agents.
	Xiaoran Li was born in Hebei province, China in 1980. She received her B.S. degree in polymer materials from Hebei University of Technology in 2004. She is pursuing her Ph.D. degree [with Prof. Xiaoyan Yuan] in the Department of Polymer Materials, Tianjin University. She joined the Xia group in the fall of 007 as a jointly supervised student. Her research interest includes the preparation of nanofibers with multifunctions for use in tissue engineering and drug delivery. She plans to stay in the Xia group for 2 years before going back to receive her Ph.D. degree from Tianjin University.
	Zhengquan Li was born in Anhui, China in 1979. He obtained his Ph.D degree in inorganic chemistry from USTC in 2005 (under the supervision of Professor Yi Xie and Nengwu Zheng). He continued his research at the Singapore-MIT Alliance as a research fellow in NUS for two years (with Profs. Yong Zhang and Lin Yue Lanry Yung). In the spring of 2008, he joined Prof. Younan Xia's group at the Washington University in St. Louis as a postdoctoral fellow. His research interests include the design and synthesis of nanostructures for biomedical applications.
	Byungkwon Lim was born in Seoul, South Korea. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in School of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University (South Korea) in 2000 and 2004, respectively. His doctoral research was focused on the development of polymer and carbon nanostructures by using vapor deposition polymerization. He then worked as a senior researcher in LG Chem from 2004 to 2007. In the spring of 2007, he joined the Xia group as a postdoctoral researcher, and is now involved in the synthesis of noble metal nanoparticles for catalytic applications.
	Xianmao Lu graduated from Tsinghua University, China with a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering. He attended the University of Texas at Austin from 2000-2005 and got his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering under the supervision of Professors Keith Johnston and Brian Korgel. At present, he is working with Professor Younan Xia as a Philip Morris INEST Postdoctoral Research Fellow. His research interests include synthesis and processing of metal and semiconductor nanostructures. He enjoys playing tennis and jogging in his spare time. Personal Page
	Xiaofeng Lu was born in Heilongjiang province, China in 1978. He graduated from Jilin University with a B.S. degree in chemistry in 2003. He continued his Ph.D. study (with Profs. Wanjin Zhang and Yen Wei) in Alan G. MacDiarmid Institute in Jilin University. His doctoral research was focused on the fabrication and property studies of one-dimensional composite nanostructures. He received his Ph.D. in July, 2007. He joined the Xia group in the fall of 2007 as a postdoctoral research fellow. His research interests include synthesis and application of metal and other inorganic composite nanostructures.
	Matthew Rycenga was born in Cadillac, Michigan. He graduated from Hope College with a B.S. in chemistry in 2006. Matthew is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering with Professor Younan Xia. His scientific interests include nanoparticle synthesis, self-assembly, surfaced-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and novel biological applications of nanoparticles.
	Sara Skrabalak was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania in 1980. She attended Washington University in St. Louis (1998-2002) where she received her B.A. in chemistry. She then attended UIUC, joining Professor Suslick's laboratory in 2002. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry in the fall of 2006. Sara was the recipient of the T. S. Piper Thesis Research Award in inorganic chemistry for her dissertation work: "Porous Materials Prepared by Ultrasonic Spray Pyrolysis". She joined the Xia group in the beginning of 2007 as a postdoctoral research fellow and is now involved in the synthesis and development of novel metal nanostructures for biomedical applications.
	Yilong Wang was born and raised in Kashi, Xinjiang Province, China. He received his B.S. in polymer science and engineering from Qingdao University of Science and Technology in 1998. Since the fall of 2003, he has joined Prof. Hongchen Gu's group to pursue his Ph.D. in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He joined the Xia group in the fall of 2007 as a visiting student. His research interests include shape-controlled synthesis of novel metallic nanostructures for biomedical applications, synthesis of silica/polystyrene composite particles via heterophase polymerization in dispersed media (emulsion, dispersion and mini-emulsion polymerizations), and surface functionalization for biomedical applications.
	Jingwei Xie was born in Anhui province, China in 1977. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees (with Prof. Xiaohua Lu) in 1999 and 2002, respectively, from Department of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Technology. He then continued his Ph.D. study (with Prof. Chi-Hwa Wang) in Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore. His doctoral research was mainly focused on the biomedical devices development using electrohydrodynamic atomization. He received his Ph.D. in June, 2007, and immediately joined the Xia group as a postdoctoral research associate. His work involves production of nanostructured materials by electrospinning, with a focus on their biomedical applications such as tissue engineering and drug delivery.
	Mustafa Yavuz received his B.S. (2001) in chemistry from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey and his M. Sci. (2003) in organic chemistry at Worcester Polytechnic University in Massachusetts, under the supervision of Prof. W. G. McGimpsey. He received his Ph.D. (2007) from University of Connecticut (with Prof. Gregory Sotzing) in organic/polymer chemistry. In October 2007, he joined the Xia group as a postdoctoral fellow, and is now involved in polymer synthesis and building controlled drug-release systems with nanostructures. He enjoys playing the traditional Turkish musical instrument, "Ney", and spending time with his son.