Yuzhang Li and Bolei Zhou Receive Young Investigator Awards from the Office of Naval Research

 



UCLA Samueli

Yuzhang Li (left) and Bolei Zho (right)

Jan 13, 2025

UCLA Samueli Newsroom
Two UCLA Samueli School of Engineering assistant professors — Yuzhang Li and Bolei Zhou — have received the Young Investigator Program Awards from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to support their work on next-generation batteries and computer vision, respectively.

They join 22 other recipients in the 2025 award cohort chosen from more than 200 tenure-track or equivalent applicants at universities across the country. Established in 1985, the awards support early-career college faculty who show exceptional promise and creativity in their research. Awardees typically receive $750,000 in funding over three years.

Li, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, received his grant through the ONR Electrochemical Materials program to research smart, self-sensing batteries that can charge efficiently without degrading. Li’s research into new battery technologies has earned him several honors, including an Army Research Office Young Investigator Award for work with next-generation magnesium- and aluminum-based batteries, and a Department of Energy Early Career Research Award for investigating atomic-scale processes in lithium batteries with cryogenic-electron microscopy. He directs the Li Group at UCLA, which researches how electrochemical systems operate and fail, with the goal of improving renewable energy technology.

Zhou, an assistant professor of computer science, received his grant through the ONR Machine Learning, Reasoning and Intelligence program for his research into data-driven simulation and vision-language models. Earlier this year, he received a National Science Foundation CAREER award to develop AI systems that can interact with the real world. He is the principal investigator on three current NSF grants that utilize AI for transportation-related research, with applications in autonomous driving, household robots, digital animation and video games. He directs the Zhou Lab at UCLA, which develops machine learning methods for computer vision and machine autonomy. He also holds a faculty appointment in the Computational Medicine Department — which is affiliated with both the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and UCLA Samueli.

The ONR, an executive branch agency within the Department of Defense, funds research into advances that are anticipated to benefit naval performance. The unit also provides technical advice to the chief of naval operations and the secretary of the Navy.

Recent UCLA Samueli recipients of the Young Investigator Awards include Sergio Carbajo, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Jun Chen, an associate professor of bioengineering.

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