Prof. Shu Hu
Postdoc Caltech, Chemistry
PhD Stanford, Materials Sciences
B.S. Tsinghua, Materials Sciences
Shu Hu is an assistant professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering at Yale University, and is also affiliated with the Energy Sciences Institute at Yale West Campus. His work spans fundamental and applied research areas in nanoscale materials epitaxy, atomic-layer deposition, solid-electrolyte interfaces, and photocatalytic photonic devices for artificial photosynthesis. His group is known for tunable “leaky” coatings for efficient and stable semiconductor/liquid interfaces, and for non-equilibrium models for photochemical processes involving photocatalyst/co-catalyst/liquid particulate interfaces. Dr. Hu has been awarded several honors for his work, including the Ross N. Tucker Award and the ECS Young Investigator Award.
Email: shu.hu at yale.edu
Phone: Office – (203) 737-6521, Lab – (203) 737-6521
Address: 810 West Campus Drive, West Haven, CT 06516
Location: Office – 17 Hillhouse Rm 431, Lab – Energy Sciences Institute – II, Yale West Campus
Our group is part of the Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering at the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science. Our lab is located at the Energy Sciences Institute at Yale West Campus.
For Engineering, we enable the co-optimization of efficiency, selectivity, and stability in a designer chemical reactor. We also work with high-school science clubs together to build long-duration energy storage and water treatment PEC devices, for a clean and sustainable world!
Current team
Postdoctoral Associates
Dr. Bin Liu
Bin Liu joined the group as a postdoctoral associate in 2022. He received his PhD in Chemical Technology from Tianjin University. His PhD research focused on photoelectrochemical water splitting and CO2 reduction. He is currently working on CO2 reduction using III-V semiconductors in seawater. Bin enjoys playing basketball, Go-Karting, and travel.
Email: bin.liu.bl738 at yale.edu
Dr. Xiaohan Ma
Xiaohan Ma joined Prof. Shu Hu’s lab as a postdoctoral associate in 2023. He received his Ph.D. degree from Clemson University and B.S. degree from Nanjing Tech University, both in Materials Science and Engineering. He finished his graduate research mainly at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as a Go! Program student, focused on hydrogen generation and transfer hydrogenation via photocatalysis. Xiaohan is currently working on the photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) water splitting device scaling up and photothermal catalytic syngas conversion into solar fuels. Besides the academic interests, he also loves making coffee and playing bass guitar and drums in the band.
PhD GRADUATE STUDENT
Haoqing Su
Haoqing is a PhD Student in the Hu’s lab since 2019. He received his B.S. in Physics at Nankai University in China. He have been studying energy conversion and storage processes. At Nankai University, he studied photo-electrical devices and electron behaviors in ferroelectric crystals. As a visiting student at Harvard University, he also worked on all-solid-state lithium-ion battery projects. Currently, he is working on III-V semiconductor protection. In his leisure time, he likes racing, go-karting and skiing.
Email: haoqing.su at yale.edu
Devan Solanki
Devan joined the group as a PhD student in 2019. He is interested in solar energy research and aims to work at the interface of research and public policy after his PhD. Devan graduated from Rutgers University in 2019 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. His undergraduate research consisted of two different projects. The first was on the development of perovskite thin films for photovoltaic devices and the second involved the use of tantalum nitride as a photoanode for water oxidation. Outside of research, Devan is interested in 1920-1960s American Literature, poker, and political philosophy. Devan is very interested in speaking with any prospective undergraduate or graduate students. Feel free to email him with any questions or thoughts of collaboration.
Email: devan.solanki at yale.edu
Atsu Kludze
Atsu is from Manassas, Virginia, and is currently a Chemical Engineering PhD student in the Hu Research Group. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.
Honors: NSF Graduate Research Fellow & GEM Associate Fellow
Email: atsu.kludze at yale.edu
Wentao Zhang
Wentao joined the group as a PhD student in 2021. He received his B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from the Cooper Union in New York City and his M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University. His research at Columbia focused on the transport of electroactive species contributed by ion migration in membrane coated electrocatalysts (MCECs). He is currently working on the development and characterization of ternary metal oxide coatings on III-V semiconductors for photocatalysis applications. In his free time Wentao enjoys skiing, playing tennis, Go-Karting, and helping his dog live his best life.
Email: wentao.zhang at yale.edu
Lucas Bertucci
Lucas is a PhD student in the Hu Lab since 2023. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kentucky. His undergraduate research specialized in the metallurgical recycling of neglected wastes including solar panels, computers, cell phones, batteries, and other electronic wastes at the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research and Department of Mining Engineering. Through the success of his research, Lucas has become the co-founder of start-up companies Verdant Beneficiated Resources and its subsidiary American Solar Recycling Company. For his innovations in recycling, Lucas holds multiple patents. In the Hu Lab, Lucas is working to bring innovation to silicon recycling and photocatalysis. When he is not spending time on research, you can find Lucas holding out hope for his New England Patriots, painting art, or enjoying cinema.
Email: lucas.bertucci at yale.edu
Qian Zheng
Zheng is a PhD student in Hu Group since 2024. He received his B.S. and B.Eng. degrees at Tsinghua University. His research at Tsinghua mainly focused on thermal catalysis, with a emphasis on biomass catalytic reforming. Currently, his work explores AI-driven digital twins and non-equilibrium theory. Beyond the lab, Zheng is passionate about hiking and capturing astrophotography.
Shi Xiang
Xiang joined Professor Hu’s research group as a PhD student in Chemical and Environmental Engineering in 2024. He earned his B.S. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He’s interested photoelectrochemistry, semiconductor fabrication and reactor design. Right now his research involves non-equilibrium catalysis and time-dependent modeling. During his spare time, he enjoys watching animations and playing music.
Email: xiang.shi at yale.edu
Yang Hu
Yang Hu joined Hu’s research group as a PhD student in 2024. He got his B.S. in Electronic Science and Technology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). He focused on the recycling of NMC cathodes of Li-ion batteries in HUST. In Hu’s lab, he is working on plasma for extreme-temperature synthesis of various ultra materials including ceramic and high-entropy alloy etc. Outsides the lab, he enjoys fishing and hiking.
Email: yang.hu@yale.edu
Visiting Student
Nicolas Liu
Nick is an undergraduate student from the greater Chicago area. He is studying Chemical Engineering with a special interest in sustainability. With the Hu Group, Nick has learned a lot about PEC devices and is currently studying coating techniques and performance of novel semiconducting surfaces in green fuel applications. In his free time, Nick loves playing basketball, racket sports, as well as card games with friends.
Quinn Ennis
Quinn is a junior physics major, part of the Hu lab since 2023. His thesis explores enantio-specific chemical interactions on faceted semiconductors. He is also using physically-informed neural networks to model flow in nanowires. Quinn has previously worked at the Walter Schottky Institute at the Technical University of Munich with Dr. Ian Sharp and at the University of New Mexico with Dr. James Thomas. Outside the lab, Quinn enjoys cooking, is the captain of the Yale Climbing Team, and conducts computational political science research with Dr. James Sundquist.
Past team
Former Trainees
Dr. Devan Solanki (2019-2024, postdoc at Harvard University)
Dr. Rito Yanagi (2018-2023, postdoc at Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Dr. Jake Heinlein (2018-2023, postdoc at Stanford University)
Dr. Chengxing He (2022, Process Engineer at TSMC)
Dr. Sauma Gulati (2022, Process Engineer at IBM)
Dr. Yuqi She (2022, Process Engineer at Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing)
Dr. Zhaohan Li (2021, Process Engineer at Lam Research)
Dr. Tianshuo “Leo” Zhao (2019-2020, Assistant Professor at Hong Kong University)16
Dr. Zachary Fishman (2017-2019, Program Assistant Director at DARPA/Booze Allen)
Dr. Zhenhua Pan (2017-2018, Associate Professor at Hyogo University, Japan)
Dr. Jason A. Rohr (2018-2019, now Principal Scientist at the University of Pennsylvania)
Dr. Yulian He (2016-2020, Assistant Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
Dr. Georges Siddiqi (2016-2017, Chief Engineer at Northrop Grumman)
Constance Lam (2016, Analyst at Bridgewater Associates)
Doga Satir (2020, Engineer at Scottish Energy Group)
Euan Gillham (2019, Master Program at Oxford University)
William Rosenbluth (2017, undergraduate at Yale University)
Grace Callander (2018, NSF GFRP, PhD program at Stanford University)
Caleb Shi (2018, undergraduate at MIT)
Jacob Miller (2018, analyst at Yale Investment Office)
Ian Billinge (2019, PhD program at Columbia University)
Franchette Brosoto (2021, graduate program at United States Naval Academy)
Dea Koco (2021, Engineer at Unilever, Inc.)
Gouri Krishnan (2022, undergraduate at MIT)
Christine Oberhausen (2021, PhD program at the University of Delaware)
Michael Adeyi (2022, PhD program at Harvard University)
Antonia Kolb (2023, undergraduate at Harvard University)
Maxwell Chen (2023, undergraduate at the University of Chicago)
Graduated PhD Students
Dr. Xin Shen (2017-2022, now in technology sectors)
Dr. Yulian He (2016-2020, now Assistant Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
Visiting Professors
Prof. Shiming Zhou (University of Science and Technology of China)
Prof. Xihao Chen (Liaoning University)
Visiting Scholars
Doğa Şatır (University of Edinburgh)
Xiangyan Chen (Xi’an Jiaotong University)
Jiahui Li (Donghua University)
Yudong Xue (Chinese Academy of Science and Technology)
Xianbing Miao (University of Science and Technology of China)
Xiaomei Liu (Beijing University of Technology)
Junying Tang (Tongji Univeristy)
Postdoctoral Associates
Dr. Yuqi She (2022, now Process Engineer at ASM)
Dr. Zhaohan Li (2021, now Process Engineer at Lam Research)
Dr. Tianshuo “Leo” Zhao (2019-2020, now Assistant Professor at Hong Kong University)
Dr. Georges Siddiqi (2016-2017, now engineer at Northrop Grumman)
Dr. Zhenhua Pan (2017-2018, now Assistant Professor at Chuo University, Japan)
Dr. Jason A. Rohr (2018-2019, now Principal Scientist at UPenn)
Dr. Zackchary Fishman (2017-2019, now Research Staff at Institute for Defense Analyses)
Masters Students
Yifan Deng (Fall 2016,University of Pittsburgh)
Euan Gillham (2019, second Masters at Oxford University)
Meiqi Yang (2018-2020, Princeton PhD program)
Undergraduate Students and Summer Researchers
Phoebe Chu (2022, Valley Christian High School)
Pranav Parakh (2021, Yale undergraduate)
Anaís Nagle (2021, Yale undergraduate)
Halyn McKenzie (2021, Yale undergraduate)
Erick Marroquin (2021, Yale undergraduate)
Michael Lee (2021, Yale undergraduate)
Daniel King (2021, Texas A&M; UT Austin PhD program)
John Russell (2020-2022, King School High School; now at Harvard)
Chang Qiu (Summer 2020, University of Science and Technology of China undergraduate)
Sammy Hillenmeyer (2019-2020, King School High School)
Grace Callander (2018-2019, Yale undergraduate; Stanford PhD program)
Dea Koco (Summer 2019, Yale undergraduate)
Peter Prastakos (Summer 2018, Yale undergraduate)
Jacob Miller (Summer 2018, Yale undergraduate)
Ian Billinge (2017-2019, Columbia University PhD program)
Roxie Trachtenberg (2017-2018)
Jiaye Chen (Summer 2019, University of Science and Technology of China)
Yulin Liu (Summer 2019, University of Science and Technology of China)
Yijie Xu (Summer 2019, Tsinghua University)
Yu Chen (Summer 2019, Peking Universikty)
Shuyu Dong (Summer 2019, Tianjin University)
Michael Mattessich (Fall 2017, Yale Chemical Engineering and Economics)
Yuzi Luo (Summer 2017, now at Stanford Materials Science Engineering)
Zuyang Ye (Summer 2017, now at UC Riverside)
Zhenya Luo (Summer 2017, University of Science and Technology of China)
Dawei Xi (Summer 2017, University of Science and Technology of China)
Avram Durling (Spring 2017-Summer 2017, Yale Intensive Physics, also currently Duke)
Daniel Raynor (Spring 2017, now at Ramboll Environmental Consulting)
Sheng Li (Fall 2016-Spring 2017, now at University of Toronto)
Xi Chen (Summer 2016, now at Brown University)
Constance Lam (Summer 2016, Yale Applied Mathematics)