Ying Shirley Meng
The ACS Energy & Fuels Division Research Excellence Award in Electrochemical Energy Storage (EES Award) has been awarded to Professor Ying Shirley Meng from the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. ENFL’s EES Award is sponsored by CAPCHEM TECHNOLOGY USA INC. (CAPCHEM). The award recognizes and supports scientists with “excellence in research in the field of electric energy storage who are affiliated with and actively serve the ACS ENFL Division.” The award was launched to honor mid-career scientists (10-20 years from last degree at the time of nomination).
Dr. Meng is an internationally recognized leader in developing and implementing integrated computational and operando/in-situ characterization techniques to probe long-range or short-range atomic rearrangement in complex oxides during operations, and for applying the knowledge in design, synthesis, and optimization of energy storage materials and devices. Dr. Meng’s discovery of liquefied gas electrolytes has allowed for the design of batteries to operate at -112°F, leading to a startup company “South 8 Technologies”, which aims to produce batteries for high altitude, cold regimes, and deep ocean applications. Dr. Meng also is recognized for developing a novel approach for quantifying the inactive lithium in lithium metal batteries, enabling a doubling of the energy density of current battery technology, also providing extended cycle life and safety.
Dr. Meng is a highly prolific scientist, with 285 publications with an h-Index of 102, totaling 37,900 citations. Her career continues to grow at an exponential rate, with 253 publications and 28,000 citations coming in the last five years alone. Dr. Meng has a decorated publication record, having published multiple times in Science, Nature, JACS, EES, ChemRev, among others. She has been recognized as a Fellow from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2022) and the Materials Research Society (2021), and winner of the Michael Faraday Medal of Royal Society of United Kingdom in 2020.
Dr. Meng has made a sustained and significant contribution to the ACS community, as an outstanding researcher, as an excellent educator, and strong advocate for diversity in the scientific workforce. Dr. Meng has provided multiple contributions to ENFL and having won the American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials & Interfaces Young Investigator Award in 2018. Dr. Meng has been the lead organizer of several symposia for ACS including the symposium on “Batteries and Fuel Cell Technologies: Challenges and Solutions Towards Global Stewardships” in 248th American Chemical Society ACS National Meeting and Exhibition, San Francisco, USA, August 10-14th, 2014, and Symposium on Advances in Batteries, American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall Meeting, Philadelphia, August 23-24th, 2012. She has performed numerous reviews for ACS Petroleum fund throughout the years. She is a regular reviewer for Journal of American Chemical Society, Chemistry of Materials, ACS Energy Letters, and many other ACS society journals. Dr. Meng and her team have published 65 publications to ACS journals within the past ten years, which total approximately 22% of her 285 publications to date.
ENFL celebrates Dr. Meng’s accomplishments and impact in electrochemistry field coupled with her commitment to furthering ENFL’s and its mission. As such, ENFL recognizes her with the Research Excellence Award in Electrochemical Energy Storage for 2023. The award consists of $2,000, a plaque, two tickets to the Division dinner, up to $1,500 to support the awardee’s registration, airfare, and lodging.