Hailiang Wang has been named to head the Energy Sciences Institute (ESI) at Yale’s West Campus. He succeeds Gary Brudvig, who has led the Institute through a period of significant growth since 2012.
Wang is a Professor of Chemistry as well as director of the Institute, which focuses on the emerging challenges facing the environment and energy sectors. One of seven institutes on the West Campus, the ESI houses collaborative laboratory space for energy sciences research “under one roof” at Yale.
The Wang lab employs chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology and surface science to tackle the challenges in electrochemical energy storage and conversion.
“I feel honored and privileged to lead the next phase of developing energy science efforts at Yale,” said Wang. “I look forward to working closely with my excellent faculty colleagues at the institute, and with our teams of postdocs, research scientists and students, in developing unique collaborations across Yale.”
The Yale Energy Sciences Institute brings together scientists from multiple disciplines to tackle a defining challenge of the 21st century: the transition to a sustainable, renewable energy future.
By merging scholars from the departments of Chemistry, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Materials Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Physics, and Applied Physics, the ESI drives discoveries that traditional departments could not achieve alone.
The Institute serves as a core pillar of Yale’s broader climate action and sustainability goals, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations in renewable energy technologies, creating new materials for solar power, and advancing methods for energy storage and carbon management.
Wang has extensive expertise in energy science and has been a faculty member of the ESI since 2014.
“I am delighted that we will be able to call on Hailiang Wang’s leadership, his scientific accomplishments, and his longstanding success in the Department of Chemistry and as a member of the Energy Sciences Institute,” said Michael Crair, the Vice Provost for Research, whose responsibilities include Yale’s West Campus.
“We are indebted to Gary Brudvig for his groundbreaking leadership of the ESI. In succeeding the Institute’s inaugural Director, Hailiang will build on the strongest foundations to advance the ESI’s interdisciplinary mission in energy research at Yale,” he said.
Brudvig became Director of the Energy Sciences Institute in 2012, overseeing the unprecedented growth of new research programs that aim to develop solutions to the world’s energy challenges. The Benjamin Silliman Professor of Chemistry, of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, and of Materials Science, Brudvig studies the chemistry of solar energy conversion in photosynthesis and develops artificial bioinspired systems for solar fuel production.
Brudvig is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, two of the highest honors bestowed on an American scholar.
Hailiang Wang joined the Yale faculty at the ESI in 2014 following postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He received a PhD in Chemistry from Stanford University and has received numerous academic awards and honors, including the recent National Brown Investigator Award and Yale Faculty Innovation Award.