Lai-Sheng Wang (, born 1961 in Henan, China) is an experimental physical chemist currently serving as the Chair of the Chemistry Department at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. Wang is known for his work on atomic gold pyramids and planar boron clusters.

Education

Wang obtained a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Wuhan University in 1982, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1990. He completed his postdoctoral stay at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

before moving to Richland, WA in 1993 to accept a joint position between

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant unive ...

and

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the United States Department of Energy national laboratories, managed by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science. The main campus of the laboratory is in Richland, Washington. O ...

. In 2009 he moved to Brown University, where he teaches

physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mecha ...

and conducts research. He was named the Jesse H. and Louisa D. Sharpe Metcalf Professor of Chemistry in 2015 and Chair of the Department in 2019.

Research

Throughout his career, Wang has predominately studied

nanoclusters Nanoclusters are atomically precise, crystalline materials most often existing on the 0-2 nanometer scale. They are often considered kinetically stable intermediates that form during the synthesis of comparatively larger materials such as semico ...

and solution-phase chemistry in the gas phase, focusing on the fundamental behaviors of nanoclusters using

photoelectron spectroscopy Photoemission spectroscopy (PES), also known as photoelectron spectroscopy, refers to energy measurement of electrons emitted from solids, gases or liquids by the photoelectric effect, in order to determine the binding energies of electrons in th ...

and computational techniques. With his group, Wang has discovered golden bucky-balls and the smallest golden pyramid, as well as aromatic clusters and planar

boron Boron is a chemical element with the symbol B and atomic number 5. In its crystalline form it is a brittle, dark, lustrous metalloid; in its amorphous form it is a brown powder. As the lightest element of the ''boron group'' it has th ...

clusters. In addition, his group has pioneered spectroscopic studies in the gas-phase of free multiply-charged

anion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

s and solution-phase molecules, such as metal complexes,

redox Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate (chemistry), substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of Electron, electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction ...

species, and biologically-relevant molecules. His group has also developed ion-trap techniques to create ultracold anions that allow high resolution photoelectron spectroscopy to be performed on complex molecules. In 2014, Wang's a research team at

showed that the structure of was not only possible but highly stable.

Photoelectron spectroscopy Photoemission spectroscopy (PES), also known as photoelectron spectroscopy, refers to energy measurement of electrons emitted from solids, gases or liquids by the photoelectric effect, in order to determine the binding energies of electrons in th ...

revealed a relatively simple spectrum, suggesting a symmetric cluster. Neutral B36 is the smallest boron cluster to have sixfold symmetry and a perfect hexagonal vacancy, and it can be viewed as a potential basis for extended two-dimensional boron sheets. Wang has published over 530 articles, which have been featured in publications such as

Nature Magazine ''Nature'' is a British weekly scientific journal founded and based in London, England. As a multidisciplinary publication, ''Nature'' features peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. It ...

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

Physical Review Letters ''Physical Review Letters'' (''PRL''), established in 1958, is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society. As also confirmed by various measurement standards, which include the ''Journa ...

Angewandte Chemie ''Angewandte Chemie'' (, meaning "Applied Chemistry") is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that is published by Wiley-VCH on behalf of the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker). Publishing formats include feature-length ...

, and the

Journal of the American Chemical Society The ''Journal of the American Chemical Society'' is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1879 by the American Chemical Society. The journal has absorbed two other publications in its history, the ''Journal of Analytical ...

Honors and awards

*1996 CAREER Award, U.S. National Science Foundation *1997 Westinghouse Distinguished Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, Washington State University *1997 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow *2003 American Physical Society Fellow *2005 Distinguished Faculty Award, Washington State University *2005

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

*2006 Humboldt Senior Research Award *2007 Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Research, Scholarship and Arts, Washington State University *2007

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

Fellow *2014 Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy *2021 E. Bright Wilson Award in Spectroscopy *2023 Herbert P. Broida Prize

Affiliations

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

Materials Research Society
*

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Lai-Sheng 1961 births Living people Chemists from Henan Physicists from Henan Computational chemists UC Berkeley College of Chemistry alumni Brown University faculty Washington State University faculty Wuhan University alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Educators from Henan Chinese science writers Writers from Henan