Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Yuzhang Li Receives Top Early Career Honor for Research and Teaching

Yuzhang Li, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has received a 2025 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. The honor, which includes a $100,000 research grant, recognizes outstanding faculty within the first five years of their academic careers in chemistry, chemical engineering and related fields who demonstrate a deep commitment to education.

Funded by the New York-based nonprofit Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the award is given to 19 recipients this year and will support Li’s research to expand applications for cryogenic electron microscopy, or cryo-EM. This technology uses extremely cold temperatures and low doses of electrons to capture 3D images of fragile molecules. Accurate molecular imaging can enhance next-generation technologies, particularly those dependent on interactions at the molecular and electron scale, such as in energy storage and utilization. 

Li, who joined UCLA in 2020, leads a research group that uses cryo-EM to study the atomic-scale assembly of lithium for next-generation battery charging. The work has led to a cover feature in Nature and earned him several honors, including an Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, a Naval Research Office Young Investigator Award and a California Climate Action Grant. He has also received a U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Award for investigating atomic-scale processes using cryo-EM. For his work imaging biological processes, such as a neuron in the act of firing, Li received a National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award in 2024.

First established in 1970, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award was divided into two parallel programs in 1994: the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program, aimed at research universities, and the Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program, directed at primarily undergraduate institutions. 

Previous Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award recipients with UCLA Samueli ties include Timothy Deming of bioengineering (2000), and Irene Chen (2018) and Yi Tang (2008) — both in chemical and biomolecular engineering and bioengineering. All three also hold a faculty appointment in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Other recipients include Emily Carter (1992), a distinguished professor emeritus in chemical and biomolecular engineering; Richard Kaner (1991), a chemistry and biochemistry professor with a joint appointment in materials science and engineering; and Kendall Houk (1972), a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry with an appointment in chemical and biomolecular engineering.