The Department of Chemistry is pleased to recognize an outstanding graduate student, Chaolumen Wu, with the 2022 Robert C. Haddon Memorial Endowed Graduate Award and $1,000. Chaolumen’s research, under the guidance of Professor Yadong Yin, focuses on the assembly of colloidal nanoparticles into functional superstructures. He has developed strategies for assembling nanoparticles into hollow superstructures and for creating chains of plasmonic nanoparticles whose optical properties can be tuned by a magnetic field. Professor Yin praises Chaolumen’s motivation and diligence in research, as well as his teaching and mentoring of other students, including undergraduates.
Chaolumen has co-authored 11 papers in his career, including articles in Angewandte Chemie International Edition and Nano Letters. Chaolumen earned a bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering at the East China University of Science and Technology in 2014, and then completed a masters degree in polymer materials at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2017 before coming to UCR to pursue his PhD. He expects to complete his PhD this fall, after which he plans to do postdoctoral research in materials chemistry.
The Haddon award was established in memory of Professor Haddon (1943-2016), who came to UCR in 2000 and was a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Environmental Engineering, and Director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering at UC Riverside. Professor Haddon predicted and discovered superconductivity in alkalie-metal-doped carbon-60, prepared and characterized stable crystals of phenalenyl radicals, and performed many other pioneering studies on the chemistry of carbon nanotubes, graphene, and nanotechnology.