Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo is a Malaysian-born chemical engineer and the Theodora D. '78 and William H. Walton III '74 Professor in Engineering at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, where she is also the Director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. She is known for inventing

nanotransfer printing Nanotransfer printing (nTP) (compare with microcontact printing) is a purely additive and high resolution metal printing technique. It mainly relies on the principle of surface chemistry - chemically modified surfaces act as interfacial "release" ...

. Loo was elected a Fellow of the

Materials Research Society The Materials Research Society (MRS) is a non-profit, professional organization for materials researchers, scientists and engineers. Established in 1973, MRS is a member-driven organization of approximately 14,000 materials researchers from academi ...

in 2020.

Early life and education

Loo was born in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

, Malaysia, and later lived in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

, Taiwan, where she attended

Taipei American School Taipei American School (TAS; ; abbreviation TAS) is a non-profit private school, private international school with an American-based curriculum located in Tianmu, Shilin District, Tianmu, Shilin District, Taipei, Taiwan. TAS serves students from ...

. She moved to the United States to attend the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, where she completed bachelor's degrees in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

and materials science in 1996. She then pursued graduate studies at

, where she received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in 2001 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Controlled polymer crystallization through block copolymer self-assembly."

Research and career

She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

for a year afterward before joining the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...

's Chemical Engineering Department. In 2004, she was included by ''

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

'' on its

TR35 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

list of under-35-year-old innovators for her invention of

, a technique for printing nanoscale patterns onto plastic surfaces. This technique allows for the creation of organic electronic devices by printing electrical circuit components onto plastic surfaces. In 2007, Loo joined the faculty of Princeton's Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, where, , she is the Theodora D. '78 and William H. Walton III '74 Professor in Engineering. Her research concerns the periodic structures of block polymers,

organic semiconductor Organic semiconductors are solids whose building blocks are pi-bonded molecules or polymers made up by carbon and hydrogen atoms and – at times – heteroatoms such as nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen. They exist in the form of molecular crystals or ...

s, and patterning techniques for plastic electronics. Loo launched the Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership (E-ffiliates) in 2012. In 2016 she was appointed director of Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Loo's research group studies solution-processable organic semiconductors and conductors. She also researches soft lithography. Using derivatives of Hexabenzocoronene Loo's group developed transparent near-UV solar cells for smart windows, which also contain electrochromic polymers that control the window tint.

Awards and honors

* 2005

Beckman Young Investigators Award The Beckman Young Investigators Award was established by Mabel and Arnold Beckman in 1991, and is now administered by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. The Beckman Young Investigator (BYI) Program is intended to provide research support to p ...

*2006 O’Donnell Award from the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas *2008 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship *2010 John H. Dillon Medal from the American Physical Society *2011Appointed to the Global Young Academy *2012 Owens Corning Early Career Award *2013 Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society *2015 Finalist for the

Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists was established in 2007 through a partnership between the Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by Leonard Blavatnik (Russian: Леонид Валентинович Блаватник), chairman of Access Indust ...

National Awards in the Physical Sciences & Engineering category * 2020 Elected Fellow of the

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loo, Yueh-lin Living people Chemical engineers Chemical engineering academics Malaysian engineers Malaysian women engineers Princeton University faculty Princeton University alumni University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni People from Kuala Lumpur Polymer scientists and engineers Women materials scientists and engineers Malaysian emigrants to the United States Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century women engineers