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Chemical Engineer Lilian Hsiao Named Sloan Research Fellow

Lilian Hsiao, an Asian American woman, stands in front of a window

For Immediate Release

Lilian Hsiao, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at North Carolina State University, has been awarded a 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry. Hsiao’s work focuses on advancing our fundamental understanding of microscopic forces in liquids and soft matter, and using that knowledge to engineer next-generation materials with unusual mechanical and structural properties.

Open to scholars in seven scientific and technical fields – chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, and physics – the two-year Sloan Research Fellowship was awarded this year to 118 researchers in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their fields. Fellows receive $75,000 for research-related expenses from the foundation.

Hsiao is the seventh NC State faculty member to receive the prestigious award, which has been awarded annually since 1955 by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Chemist T. Brent Gunnoe was named a Sloan Research Fellow in 2004, mathematician Jonathan Hauenstein received the award in 2014, biomedical engineer Zhen Gu received it in 2016, mathematician Tye Lidman received it in 2018, materials scientist Veronica Augustyn received the award in 2019 and mathematician Cynthia Vinzant received it in 2020.

Past Sloan Research Fellows include physicists Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann, and game theorist John Nash. Fifty-three fellows have received a Nobel Prize in their respective field, 17 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, 69 have received the National Medal of Science and 22 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, including every winner since 2007.

Hsiao received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2014 and joined NC State’s faculty in 2016.

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