Wenliang Huang
Assistant Professor
College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University
Address
Room A814, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
Contact
Tel: +86-10-62755702
Email：wlhuang@pku.edu.cn
Education
PhD 2008.9 – 2013.9
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Advisor: Prof. Paula L. Diaconescu
B. S. 2004.9 – 2008.7
Yuanpei College, Peking University
Advisor: Prof. Yun-dong Wu
Employment
Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) 2017.8 –
College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University
Postdoctoral Associate 2014.1 – 2017.8
Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Biography
Wenliang Huang was born in Shanghai, the east gate of China. After enjoying his childhood in the hometown without much snow, he moved north to see some real snow in Yan Yuan where resides the top Chinese academic institute, Peking University. After taking courses of a variety of subjects, including chemistry, mathematics, physics, and economics, he was determined to devote his life in chemistry and joined the research group of Prof. Yun-Dong Wu. At Prof. Wu’s group, he learned computational chemistry and applied it to study the mechanism of organometallic reactions.
This experience ignited his interests in organometallic chemistry and encouraged him to apply for oversea PhD program and eventually join Prof. Paula L. Diaconescu’s lab at UCLA to study the reduction chemistry of rare-earth metal complexes. During his PhD, he got more than 150 X-ray structures of rare-earth metal complexes and received several awards, including Inorganic Chemistry Dissertation Award and Dissertation Year Fellowship. At the end of his PhD, he became interested in organic synthesis and materials and joined the research group of Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald, a renowned organic chemist at MIT, as a postdoctoral associate. As a key member of the joint research program established by MIT, Harvard and Samsung, he participated in the design of novel blue light-emitting OLEDs and led the synthesis team.
In August 2017, after studying abroad for nine years, he came back to his alma mater and joined the faculty of College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University. He established the research group of Coordination Chemistry of f-Elements (CCFE) in the State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications. His main research interests are coordination chemistry and organometallic chemistry of rare-earth metals and actinides, especially on utilizing metal–arene interaction for unusual oxidation state chemistry of f-elements. Since starting independent career, he has published over 20 papers as the corresponding author and trained six PhDs, two postdocs and 15 BSs (Bachelor of Science). He received several awards, including Chinese Oversea High-Level Young Scholar, Young Chemist Periodic Table of Chinese Chemical Society (representing scandium), Luye Eminent Young Scholar Fellowship and Second prize and student’s favorite and best lesson plan awards in the Junior Faculty Teaching Competition at Peking University.