Wang named to Forbes 30 Under 30 list

By Patrick Kurp
Special to the Rice News

Haotian Wang, assistant professor and William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice, has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science list for 2019.

Haotian Wang, assistant professor and William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Forbes writes: “Wang’s goal is to help solve climate change and build useful products at the same time. He’s doing that by using carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as a raw material for green fuels and other chemicals, and he’s created a method of artificial photosynthesis that’s more efficient than natural photosynthesis in plants.”

Wang, who joined the Rice faculty in 2018, earned a doctorate in applied physics from Stanford University in 2016 and a bachelor’s degree in condensed matter physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2011.

Prior to coming to Rice, Wang was a fellow of the Rowland Institute at Harvard. His research focuses on renewable energy technologies, including novel electrocatalysts for carbon dioxide reduction and CO2 thermal hydrogenation catalysis. Wang was selected to join the Nano Letters Early Career Advisory Board in 2016 and won a Materials Research Society Graduate Student Award in 2015.

Forbes’ 30 Under 30 lists, which started in 2011 and include 15 categories, highlight the accomplishments and promise of those who “represent the entrepreneurial, creative and intellectual best of their generation.”