Wang, Xiaoguang

Biography

Xiaoguang (William) Wang joined the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Ohio State University as a tenure-track assistant professor in January 2019.

He received a BS degree (chemical engineering) from Zhejiang University, China in 2008. He obtained his MS degree (chemical engineering) from Zhejiang University, China in 2011, where his research focused on controlled/living free radical emulsion polymerization under supervision of Prof. Shiping Zhu and Prof. Yingwu Luo.

He obtained a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016. His PhD research with Prof. Nicholas Abbott focused on liquid crystal-templated assembly of colloids and molecules.

Prior to joining The Ohio State University, he worked with Prof. Joanna Aizenberg at Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow, on the topic of design of functional materials based on stimuli-responsive soft matter. 

Expertise

Xiaoguang (William) Wang’s research interests revolve around the design of novel dynamic materials and systems based on colloidal and interfacial phenomena.

This knowledge will not only span fundamental understanding, but also form the basis of a novel class of stimuli-responsive materials for use in a wide range of technologies.

The first thrust of his research will address the question of how the polymer chain architecture affects the deformation behaviors of shape changing polymers. The results obtained from this study will provide new design principles for responsive polymeric materials for soft robotics.

In the second thrust of his research, he is particularly interested in anisotropic liquid-infused surfaces, which permit manipulation of surface wettability and slipperiness by using physical, chemical or biomolecular events.

These results will open entirely new routes for designing advanced surfaces that may find use in water harvesting, drug delivery and biological sensors.

A third area of interest is related to the development of highly efficient methodologies for green energy generation from ambient environment. All three research interests are unified by the challenge of understanding intermolecular interactions both in bulk and at interfaces.

Keywords: condensed soft matter (liquid crystals and polymers), wettability and interfacial phenomena, molecular self-assembly, colloidal assembly