Yang Yang
Materials Science and Engineering Department Chair
Yang Yang is a distinguished professor and the chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. He also holds a faculty appointment in bioengineering and is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.
Since 2011, Yang has been the inaugural holder of the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering. His research interests focus on the design of high-performance, cost-effective and highly efficient electronic devices, including solar cells, thin-film transistors and light-emitting devices. In the field of organic photovoltaics, Yang’s work has enhanced the understanding of polymer morphology and its influence on device performance. He has also invented several new devices that set world records in energy efficiencies. Five startup companies have been founded on technologies developed by his research group.
Yang is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Physical Society, the Electromagnetic Academy and SPIE, the international society for photonics and optics. He is also a member of the European Academy of Sciences and the Advanced Materials Hall of Fame. Yang has consistently been listed in Clarivate’s annual Highly Cited Researchers list, a distinction placing his authored works among the top 1% of citations globally over the past decade.
A member of UCLA’s faculty since 1997, Yang holds a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.