Yi Lu, a chemist from The University of Texas at Austin, has been selected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a prestigious distinction awarded to a select group of 164 academic innovators around the world for 2021.
The new UT Austin fellows also include four faculty members from the Cockrell School of Engineering. They join 16 previous inductees from UT Austin.
Founded in 2010, the National Academy of Inventors aims to recognize inventors with patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with an overall emphasis on innovation that clearly benefits society.
Across campus, the innovators have made important discoveries in a variety of areas. They've contributed to major leaps in semiconductors and processors, helping usher in today's unprecedented technological boom. They've developed environmentally friendly solvents and processes for major industrial uses. And they've created materials and catalysts to improve medical imaging, gene editing, drug delivery, environmental monitoring and more.
Lu's research interests lie at the interface between chemistry and biology, engineering and designing environmentally benign catalysts for renewable energy generation and pharmaceuticals. DNAzymes and their applications in environmental monitoring, medical diagnostics, gene editing and targeted drug delivery are also areas of focus for Lu, as well as assembling nanomaterials for use in imaging and medicine. Lu has received many awards, including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professors Award, the Royal Society of Chemistry Applied Inorganic Chemistry Award and the Joseph Chatt Award.
Lu is the third faculty member in the College of Natural Sciences to be inducted into the NAI, joining George Georgiou, professor of molecular bioscience, and Jonathan Sessler, professor of chemistry, both of whom were named fellows in 2015. This year's other UT Austin fellows are Sanjay Banerjee, Ananth Dodabalapur and Earl Swartzlander, all of the Cockrell School's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Joan Brennecke, a professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering.
Lu holds the Richard J. V. Johnson - Welch Regents Chair in Chemistry. The induction ceremony for him and this year's other honorees will take place June 13-15, 2022, in Phoenix.
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