Effective 07/01/2026, Chong is promoted to Full Professor, somehow. He is grateful for all the supports from colleagues, collaborators, and friends. Moreover, such an accelerated promotion is impossible without the support and contribution of current and former group members. Chong is extremely grateful for their works!

The Liu group has changed quite a bit since its founding 9 years ago at UCLA. The research focuses have shifted, in a good way, into directions that were almost impossible to imagine in 2017. How could one imagine in 2017 that the group will work on automation and artificial intelligence for electrochemistry? Even in the directions that Chong has envisioned in 2017, the methodology, scientific questions, and the relevant community are quite different fro the originally proposed ones. It is exciting to see how the Liu group will continuously evolve in the next decade for the sake of science.

Finally, the current research in the Liu group (mostly):

The Liu group participates in a newly funded NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC), lead by Washington University in St. Louis (WashU). This 5-year $26M center (EEC-2330245), named as The Carbon Utilization Redesign for Biomanufacturing-Empowered Decarbonization (CURB), will use a Hybrid Electro-Bio CO₂ Utilization System (HEBCUS) that uses electrocatalysis to turn waste carbon dioxide into intermediate substances, such as ethanol, acetate and propionate. These intermediates will be compatible with biomanufacturing systems that can more efficiently convert them into a range of products, such as platform chemicals, biofertilizers and other environmentally responsible materials.

As one thrust leader of this ERC, Chong look forwards to the collaboration and research progresses in the future~~

The news release from WashU can be found here.

Chong receives the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER), NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. We are grateful for NSF’s five-year support for us to develop solution catalysis containing seemingly incompatible steps. Thank you very much!

The news report at UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry can be found here.

Chong has been selected to receive a 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship. Awarded annually since 1955, the Sloan Fellowships honor scholars in the U.S. and Canada whose creativity, leadership, and independent research achievements make them some of the most promising researchers working today.

Moreover, it is exciting that our collaborator Prof. Quanquan Gu is also one of the eight UCLA recipients of this year’s Sloan Research Fellowship!

The report of UCLA Newsroom is here. The report at UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry is here.