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Nan Yao
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BiographyProfessor Nan Yao is the founding director of Princeton’s preeminent Imaging and Analysis Center and a Professor of the Practice at Princeton University. As a faculty member, Yao is a ten-time recipient of the Excellence in Teaching and Commendation for Outstanding Teaching Award at Princeton where he has taught more than 4000 students, postdocs, and researchers. As a research scholar, Yao has over 300 scientific publications with significant contributions including the co-discovery of the first natural quasicrystal, a finding that has revolutionized the science of natural crystal chemistry by identifying the third form of solid in nature besides crystalline and non-crystalline. Yao has always been committed to pushing the boundaries of science and engineering to benefit academia, industry and society in myriad ways.
After receiving a Ph.D. in applied physics and electron microscopy from Arizona State University where John M. Cowley was his dissertation advisor, Yao entered industry, first working at the Shell Development Company, then at the ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company. He joined Princeton University in 1993 to help build an interdisciplinary imaging and analysis program, which has since become a world-leading materials characterization center at Princeton. In 2003, Yao accepted a continuing appointment from the Dean of the Faculty as a Senior Research Scholar (rank of full Professor) at Princeton University.
Yao is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a fellow of the Microscopy Society of America. His research has focused on utilizing advanced imaging, diffraction, spectroscopy and in-situ techniques, in tandem with computer simulation, to conduct fundamental studies of the structure-composition-processing-property relationships in complex materials for applications in nanotechnology, energy, environment and health. Yao has published two books entitled Handbook of Microscopy for Nanotechnology (Kluwer/Springer Publishers 2005, Chinese edition: Tsinghua University Press 2006, Russian edition: Springer Publishers 2011) and Focused Ion Beam System: Basics and Applications (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He has also authored 18 book chapters and more than 280 research publications in scientific journals, including Science, Nature, and many others. Yao is respected for many contributions to the field including his pioneer work in developing the first 300 keV Environmental-cell Transmission Electron Microscope (1991) and developing a theoretical explanation for the superior imaging resolution of scanning helium-ion microscopy over the scanning electron microscopy (2008).