Yang Yang

Yang Yang (; born 1958) is a Taiwanese-American materials scientist. He is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he holds the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering. Yang is known for his contributions to polymer organic solar cells and lead-halide perovskite solar cells. He was named as one of the "World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds" by Thomson Reuters in 2016. Yang is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Physical Society, Materials Research Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. Early life and education Yang was born in 1958 in Taiwan, growing up in the countryside before moving to Taipei with his family at the age of 10. He earned a B.S. in Physics from National Cheng Kung University in 1982. After graduation, he served two years of military service, a mandatory policy for qualified males in Taiwan. In 1985, Yang moved to the United States to begin graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. During his graduate studies, Yang changed research groups and fields multiple times for personal reasons. Initially Yang worked on studying the nonlinear optical photorefractive effect in barium titanate crystals in the Department of Physics, earning his M.S. in Physics and Applied Physics in 1988. He then continued his graduate studies, using deep-level transient spectroscopy to study charge carrier traps in polycrystalline silicon solar cells in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Yang later transitioned to research on the physical properties of conductive polymers in the Department of Chemistry, earning his Ph.D. in Physics and Applied Physics in 1992 under the supervision of Prof. Jayant Kumar and Prof. Sukant K. Tripathy. Yang's Ph.D. thesis was entitled Photoinduced charge carrier generation and transport in polydiacetylene single crystals. Career After graduating with his Ph.D. in 1992, Yang worked as a researcher at UNIAX Corporation in Santa Barbara, California (now DuPont Display Materials).