By Bill Kisliuk
Two UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science faculty members have been named 2015 fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Yang Yang, the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas Jr. Chair of Materials Science and Engineering, and Richard Kaner, UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and material science and engineering, were honored for their outstanding research and distinguished contributions to the chemical community.
Yang was recognized for his outstanding work in the field of organic photovoltaics, including contributions to solar, memory and LED technology. Yang’s recent work includes development of perovskite solar cells and photodetectors.
Among the most highly cited researchers in the world in chemistry and materials science, according to Thomson Reuters, Yang joined the UCLA faculty in 1997. Yang is also a fellow of the Electromagnetic Society and SPIE, the international society for photonics and optics.
Kaner’s research focuses on nanomaterials including graphene, an ultrathin material with extraordinary thermal, mechanical and charge-carrying properties; conducting polymers; supercapacitors; and superhard materials.
A member of the UCLA faculty since 1987, Kaner is a former Fulbright, Guggenheim, Packard and Sloan fellow, and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Materials Research Society.
The Royal Society of Chemistry, based in the United Kingdom, is the world’s leading chemistry community, advancing excellence in the chemical sciences. The society, founded in 1841, has 51,000 members and more than 7,300 fellows.