About

Dr. Yu Huang holds the Traugott and Dorothea Frederking Endowed Chair in Engineering and serves as a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China, her MA in Chemistry, and her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Harvard University. Her doctoral research focused on the bottom-up assembly of functional circuits. Following her Ph.D., she was awarded the Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellowship and pursued a joint postdoctoral appointment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and MIT, where her research explored the interfaces between biomolecules and materials. Her research at UCLA centers on understanding nanoscale phenomena and leveraging the unique properties of nanoscale materials to advance technology. She develops methodologies to probe, understand, and manipulate nanoscale processes, aiming to create integrated systems that apply materials chemistry innovations to catalysis, biosynthesis, energy technology, and next-generation electronics.

Research topics

• Organic chemistry
• Materials science
• Physical chemistry
• Chemistry
• Nanotechnology
• Computer Science
• Inorganic chemistry
• Chemical engineering
• Engineering
• Business
• Physics
• Mathematics
• Risk analysis (engineering)
• Engineering physics
• Electrical engineering
• Data science
• Systems engineering
• Optoelectronics
• Engineering management

Selected publications

• Application of polyaspartic acid-based porous carbon loaded with bimetals Cu and Ni in hydrogen adsorption

  Arabian Journal of Chemistry · 2026-03-11

  articleOpen access

  This study investigated the effect of simultaneous loading of bimetals nickel and copper on the hydrogen adsorption performance of polyaspartic acid (PASP)-based porous carbon materials. Four groups of materials with different metal ratios, namely PASP-based porous carbon loaded with bimetals copper and nickel, were prepared. A two-step calcination process was adopted. First, PASP-based porous carbon was prepared, and then the bimetal solution was impregnated, followed by a second calcination. Through characterizations and analyses using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), it was confirmed that copper and nickel were successfully loaded and uniformly dispersed on the PASP-based porous carbon, mainly functioning in the elemental form. The results of the hydrogen adsorption test showed that C-PASP-Ni6/Cu4 had the best adsorption effect, with a maximum hydrogen adsorption capacity of up to 240.87 cm 3 g -1 . Loading the bimetals copper and nickel can also significantly enhance the hydrogen storage capacity. Moreover, due to the relatively low price of copper, the cost is reduced while improving the performance.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bulk-heterojunction doping in lead halide perovskites for low-resistance metal contacts

  Nature Materials · 2026-02-20 · 1 citations

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  PublisherDOI

• CD44‐Targeted Antioxidant Nanosheets Attenuate Pulmonary Fibrosis by Inhibiting the ROS‐STAT1‐CXCL10 Axis

  Small Structures · 2026-03-01

  articleOpen access

  Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a progressive and ultimately fatal lung disorder characterized by irreversible parenchymal scarring. Current therapeutic interventions are limited by suboptimal efficacy and significant adverse effects, highlighting a critical unmet need for the development of effective antioxidant therapeutic strategies. In this study, we engineered a novel nanotherapeutic platform composed of chondroitin sulfate (Chs)‐functionalized molybdenum disulfide nanosheets (CLM NSs) for targeted PF therapy. The system was synthesized through lipoic acid (LA)‐mediated conjunction of Chs to MoS 2 nanosheets, significantly enhancing their physiological stability. CLM NSs utilize a CD44 receptor‐mediated targeting mechanism: initial pulmonary accumulation is achieved by attaching to circulating macrophages during the early inflammatory phase, followed by direct recognition of CD44 overexpressed on diseased alveolar epithelial cells in the late phase, enabling precise lesion‐specific accumulation. The nanosheets demonstrated robust broad‐spectrum antioxidant capacity, efficiently scavenging reactive oxygen/nitrogen species (ROS/RNS), restoring pulmonary redox homeostasis, and significantly inhibiting fibroblast activation and epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT). In a bleomycin‐induced murine PF model, CLM NSs exerted significant therapeutic effects, markedly attenuating fibrotic progression, preserving alveolar architecture, and reducing pathological collagen deposition. Mechanistically, their therapeutic action involves inhibition of the critical ROS‐STAT1‐CXCL10 signaling axis, consequently suppressing macrophage recruitment and the inflammatory cascade. This nanoplatform, integrating efficient targeting, potent antioxidant activity, and excellent biocompatibility, represents a highly promising strategy for PF treatment.

  PublisherDOI

• CoCoTree: A Computation-Capable Architecture for Collective Communication in Scalable PIM

  2026-01-31

  article

  The growing demand for high-bandwidth and largecapacity memory access in data-intensive workloads has driven the development and deployment of Processing-in-Memory (PIM) architectures. However, existing DIMM-based PIM systems suffer from the severe communication bottleneck between the processing elements (PEs) near the PIM banks due to their requirement on host CPU forwarding. This bottleneck limits the efficiency of collective operations and degrades scalability and performance for workloads that require inter-PE communication. To address the communication limitation, we propose CoCoTree, a computation-capable architecture for collective communication in scalable DIMM-based PIM. CoCoTree supports direct and high-throughput inter-PE communication without host intervention. CoCoTree accelerates key collective communication using novel hierarchical binary tree topology and lightweight in-network computation support. We design and implement microarchitectures for the main building blocks: Co-Leaf and Co-Node, to efficiently handle the data packing, routing, and processing in CoCoTree. Furthermore, we also introduce a packet-based communication protocol tailored to the CoCoTree architecture, which decouples control and data through a twophase configuration-computation communication mechanism to efficiently support a wide range of collective communication operations. CoCoTree effectively mitigates inter-PE communication bottlenecks, enabling scalable PIM systems capable of meeting the demands of growing data size. Experimental results show that CoCoTree achieves up to <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$95.6 \times$</tex> improvement for collective operations and improves end-to-end application performance by up to <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$10.5 \times$</tex> across various workloads over the baseline PIM, while outperforming state-of-the-art PIM communication architectures in both performance and scalability.

  PublisherDOI

• Isothermal solidification for high-entropy alloy synthesis

  Nature · 2025-09-24 · 19 citations

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  PublisherDOI

• Anticipating AMOC transitions via deep learning

  ArXiv.org · 2025-09-08

  preprintOpen access

  Key components of the Earth system can undergo abrupt and potentially irreversible transitions when the magnitude or rate of external forcing exceeds critical thresholds. In this study, we use the example of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to demonstrate the challenges associated with anticipating such transitions when the system is susceptible to bifurcation-induced, rate-induced, and noise-induced tipping. Using a calibrated AMOC box model, we conduct large ensemble simulations and show that transition behavior is inherently probabilistic: under identical freshwater forcing scenarios, some ensemble members exhibit transitions while others do not. In this stochastic regime, traditional early warning indicators based on critical slowing down are unreliable in predicting impending transitions. To address this limitation, we develop a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based approach that identifies higher-order statistical differences between transitioning and non-transitioning trajectories within the ensemble realizations. This method enables the real-time prediction of transition probabilities for individual trajectories prior to the onset of tipping. Our results show that the CNN-based indicator provides effective early warnings in a system where transitions can be induced by bifurcations, critical forcing rates, and noise. These findings underscore the potential in identifying safe operating spaces and early warning indicators for abrupt transitions of Earth system components under uncertainty.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Biocatalyzed Lactate Oxidation Enables Efficient Bias-Free Hydrogen Production in a Three-Chamber Reactor

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-08-13

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  The catalytic conversion of low-grade organic substrates into hydrogen offers a promising route for low-energy hydrogen production, thereby supporting sustainable resource utilization. However, realizing this potential requires efficient and robust catalysts that can operate at low overpotential. Conventional inorganic catalysts, including those based on costly precious metals, are generally plagued by high overpotentials for organic oxidation. Here, we demonstrate a unique bacteria-catalyzed lactate oxidation process for hydrogen production using a three-chamber reactor. This three-chamber system integrates a neutral bacteria-driven anolyte, a basic electrolyte bridge, and an acidic catholyte to achieve low-overpotential lactate oxidation coupled with efficient hydrogen evolution. The system enables simultaneous bias-free hydrogen generation and power output, reaching a peak current of ∼13 mA cm–2, with an electricity generation of ∼0.22 kWh per cubic meter of H2 at 10 mA cm–2. The system maintains stable operation for over 1000 h at 10 mA cm–2 with a high Coulombic efficiency (∼95%) and near-unity Faradaic efficiency for H2 production (∼99%). Moreover, we show that this system can effectively leverage acidic and alkaline waste from semiconductor processing to enable bias-free hydrogen production, advancing low-emission electrolysis technologies for a sustainable hydrogen economy

  PublisherDOI

• Operando Electrical Transport Spectroscopy Determination of Hydration Phase Diagrams of Alkali Metal Cations in Nanoconfined Spaces

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-10-23

  article

  The solvation of alkali metal cations (AM+) in nanoconfined spaces plays a crucial role across a wide range of fields, including biological systems, ion sieving, desalination, and electrochemical energy storage. Achieving a comprehensive understanding of AM+ solvation behavior is central for controlling these processes. We exploit operando electrical transport spectroscopy to decipher AM+ desolvation dynamics upon intercalation in the nanoconfined space of MXene thin films and establish the corresponding hydration phase diagrams. Our findings show that hydrated Li+ cations partially shed their secondary solvation shell when entering MXene interlayers, undergoing further desolvation during negative polarization until only the primary solvation shell remains. Larger cations exhibit a shrinking phase region for the secondary hydration shell. Na+ retains only the primary shell at high concentrations while partially retaining its secondary hydration at low concentrations but losing it under negative polarization. K+, in contrast, maintains only the primary hydration shell throughout the entire phase diagram. These phase diagrams elucidate the intricate interplay among cation size, concentration, and electrochemical potential in governing solvation status, offering a foundational framework for the rational design of advanced materials and interfaces in electrochemical devices.

  PublisherDOI

• <i>(Invited)</i> Toward Sustainable Hydrogen Production: Advances in Catalysts for PEM Water Electrolyzers

  ECS Meeting Abstracts · 2025-11-24

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Achieving carbon neutrality is a critical objective in addressing climate change. Hydrogen, a key energy carrier across multiple industries, holds significant promise as a zero-carbon fuel. However, the predominant method of hydrogen production—steam reforming of natural gas—is unsustainable due to its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and the associated emissions of COₓ and NOₓ. Water electrolysis, particularly when powered by renewable electricity, offers a clean and sustainable alternative. Among various electrolyzer technologies, the proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE) has emerged as a leading candidate due to its capability for high-rate, high-efficiency, and high-purity hydrogen production. Nevertheless, the widespread adoption of PEMWE is hindered by its dependence on expensive and scarce noble metal catalysts, primarily iridium (Ir) and ruthenium (Ru), which also suffer from limited durability under operating conditions. This talk will highlight recent progress in the development of durable Ir-based catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), as well as efforts to discover cost-effective, non-platinum-group-metal (non-PGM) alternatives with high activity and long-term stability in acidic environments. The implications of these advancements for improving the performance and scalability of PEMWEs will be discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• In situ grown hierarchical Ni-based MOF/graphene oxide nanosheets enable ultrahigh capacitance and robust cycling stability for aqueous electrochemical capacitors

  Electrochimica Acta · 2025-11-07 · 1 citations

  article1st author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Biological Assembly of Enzyme Electrodes for Biofuel Cells

  NSF · $300k · 2010–2014

• An Electrical Transport Spectroscopy (ETS) Approach for in situ Probing Electrochemical Interfaces

  NSF · $360k · 2015–2018

• EFRI 2-DARE: Scalable Synthesis of 2D Layered Materials for Large Area Flexible Thin Film Electronics

  NSF · $2.1M · 2014–2019

• NIH Grant DP2OD007279

  NIH · $2.3M · 2015

Frequent coauthors

• Xiangfeng Duan

  California NanoSystems Institute

  675 shared

• Zipeng Zhao

  Beijing Institute of Technology

  145 shared

• Yuan Liu

  136 shared

• Zhaoyang Lin

  Tsinghua University

  89 shared

• Enbo Zhu

  University of California, Los Angeles

  88 shared

• Yujing Li

  65 shared

• Mengning Ding

  Nanjing University

  62 shared

• Xiaoqing Huang

  Xiamen University

  61 shared

Awards & honors

• Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Materials Chemistry Horizon…
• Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Faraday Horizon Prize
• ENI Award, Energy Transition Prize
• Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (Top 1% Most Cited Researc…
• Elected Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC)