Chen promoted to assistant professor

Yachao Chen has recently transitioned from a teaching assistant professor to a tenure-track assistant professor position. She joined the Tim Taylor Department of Chemical Engineering in fall 2019. Chen has taught five different chemical engineering courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research background includes a range of projects, from synthesizing advanced ceramic materials to studying their thermal, mechanical, structural and electrical properties.

Through her doctoral and postdoctoral projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, Chen collaborated with the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source and National Renewable Energy Lab to conduct studies on high-pressure phase transformation and the deposition of piezoelectric thin films.

At K-State, she will mainly focus on designing, synthesizing and characterizing advanced ceramics specifically for energy applications, such as solid-state batteries and semiconductors. She currently supervises four undergraduate researchers working on synthesizing and characterizing ceramic solid electrolytes used for solid-state lithium-ion batteries.