Dr. Wei Gao is a newly started Assistant Professor in the Textile Engineering, Chemistry & Science Department at North Carolina State University. She worked as a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow on fuel cells and batteries in Los Alamos National Laboratory for the past two years. She obtained her Ph.D. in chemistry from Rice University in 2012, under the guidance of Professor Pulickel M. Ajayan. She also holds M.S. in analytical chemistry and B.S. in chemistry from Nanjing University, China. Dr. Gao has several years of research experience in nanomaterials and nanotechnologies. Her Ph.D. thesis mainly focused on a group of new materials named “graphene oxides” and their applications in fuel cells and batteries, as well as water purification systems. Her future research interests lie at the interfaces between nanotechnology development and textile engineering. Dr. Gao is also very enthusiastic about teaching. She received the Harry B. Weiser Teaching Award from Rice University when she served as a teaching assistant in the organic chemistry lab course. She also volunteered as a Judge in Science Fairs at several local high schools, a presenter on fuel cell topics to female students in the Expanding Your Horizons 2014 mini-conference in Santa Fe and a Chinese teacher for two semesters at a local church in Los Alamos.
Dr. Gao’s unique experience in carbon nanomaterial research, synthetic and analytical chemistry, as well as device design and fabrication inspires her plans for attaining better understanding and improved tailoring of nanomaterials for innovative energy-related systems. She wants to accomplish her research goals by engineering materials at the molecular level that promises to direct improvements in bulk properties such as the active surface area, chemical stability, and electronic/ionic conductivity, making them far superior to those of the current carbon-based materials.
