EDUCATION AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Prof. XIE Yi is now a Principal Investigator (PI) of Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and a full professor of Department of Chemistry, USTC. She received her BS in Xiamen University (1988) and Ph.D in University of Science and Technology of China (USTC, 1996). In 1996, she joined the faculty at the Department of Chemistry, USTC. From 1997 to 1998, she worked as a research postdoctoral fellow in State University of New York at Stony Brook. She was appointed as the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China and a full professor of USTC in 1998. She was also the recipient the Cheung Kong Scholar by Ministry of Education in 2000. She was selected as the academic leader of NSFC Innovation Group Fund in 2003 and academic directors of Department of Chemistry of USTC in 2009. She was also elected as an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2013, an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and an academician of Asia Pacific Academy of Materials (APAM) in 2015. 

MAJOR ACADEMIC CONTRIBUTIONS

Prof. XIE Yi’s group is pursuing cutting-edge research of solid state chemistry. Her group has established the method for preparing non-oxide nanomaterials through a hydrothermal process, and the related works won the 2nd Prize of National Natural Science Award awarded by Chinese Government (ranked second) in 2001. Also, her group has built and developed the methodology for the characteristic structure oriented construction of inorganic functional materials, and realized the construction of a series of complex inorganic functional materials with important application prospect. The related works won the 2nd Prize of National Natural Science Award awarded by Chinese Government (ranked first) in 2012.

Over the last decade, Prof. XIE Yi’s group is focusing on the study of the modulation of electron and phonon structures in low-dimensional inorganic functional solids and their applications in energy conversions. Also, her group has built the universal methods for preparing the ultra-thin two-dimensional materials, and resolved the difficulty for the accurate characterization of their structures. Her group first discovered the fundamental rules of peculiar electronic states in ultra-thin two-dimensional materials, and illuminated the clear structure−property relationship of their applications in significant energy conversions such as photo-/electro- catalysis and thermoelectric conversion. Some related works were selected as China’s top 10 scientific advance or Major Achievements on the Huge Basic Infrastructure of Science and Technology by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

She is the corresponding author of more than 330 refereed journal publications including over 10 in Nature and the Nature-branded research journals, over 80 in top three journals in chemistry (J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Mater), wherein more than 60 papers were selected as highly cited papers of top 1% by ISI. These papers have been cited by more than 35000 times with H index of 104. Her name has been continuously on the Highly Cited Researchers List from Clarivate and Elsevier.

HOSTED PROJECTS

Prof. XIE Yi’s group is pursuing cutting-edge research of solid state chemistry. Her group has established the method for preparing non-oxide nanomaterials through a hydrothermal process, and the related works won the 2nd Prize of National Natural Science Award awarded by Chinese Government (ranked second) in 2001. Also, her group has built and developed the methodology for the characteristic structure oriented construction of inorganic functional materials, and realized the construction of a series of complex inorganic functional materials with important application prospect. The related works won the 2nd Prize of National Natural Science Award awarded by Chinese Government (ranked first) in 2012.Prof. XIE Yi have hosted several major projects including the Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Major Research Plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China, the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Key Research Project of Frontier Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences etc.

AWARDS AND HONORS 

Prof. XIE Yi’s awards include the 2nd Prize of National Natural Science Award awarded by Chinese Government (2001, 2012), China Young Scientist Award (2002), Chinese Academy of Sciences-Bayer Young Scientist Award (2003), China Young Female Scientist Award (2006), IUPAC Distinguished Women in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering (2013), TWAS Prize for Chemistry (2014), L'Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Awards (2015), Prize for Scientific and Technological Prize (Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation, 2017), Nano Research Award (2017), and Major Technical Achievement Award of Anhui Province (2018) etc.

ADJUNCT RESEARCH POSITIONS 

Prof. XIE Yi is now serving as the associate editor of SCIENCE CHINA Chemistry, the International/Editorial Board members of 5 international journals including J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Joule, ACS Central Science, Materials Horizons, and 2 Chinese journals including Chinese Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. She is the deputy director of the Women Chemists Committee of the Chinese Chemical Society and member of Disciplinary Evaluation Panel of Academic Degree Committee of the Chinese State Council. Also, she was serving as one of associate editors of Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers for 4 years and the deputy director of Inorganic Chemistry Committee of Chinese Chemical Society.

PUBLICATIONS

1) Partially oxidized atomic cobalt layers for carbon dioxide electroreduction to liquid fuel

Nature, 2016, 529, 68.

2) Selective visible-light-driven photocatalytic CO2 reduction to CH4 mediated by atomically thin CuIn5S8 layers 

Nature. Energy, 2019, 4, 690.

3) Enhanced superoxide generation in defective surface for selective photooxidation

J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2019, 141, 3797.

4) Intrinsic Negative Magnetoresistance in van der Waals FeNbTe2 Single Crystals. 

Adv. Mater. 2019, 31, 1900246.

5) Visible-light-driven Overall Water Splitting Boosted by Tetrahedrally-coordinated Blende CoO Atomic Layers. 

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2019, 58, 3032.

6) Optically Switchable Photocatalysis in Ultrathin Black Phosphorus Nanosheets. 

J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2018, 140, 3474.

7) Oxygen Vacancy Mediated Exciton Dissociation in BiOBr for Boosting Charge-Carrier-Involved Molecular Oxygen Activation. 

J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2018, 140, 1760.

8) Partially Oxidized SnS2 Atomic Layers Achieving Efficient Visible-Light-Driven CO2 Reduction 

J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2017, 139, 18044.

9) Half-metallicity in single-layered manganese dioxide nanosheets via defect engineering

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2015, 54, 1195.

10)  Ultrathin spinel-structured nanosheets with rich oxygen deficiencies for enhanced electrocatalytic water oxidation. 

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2015, 54, 7399.