Faculty Spotlight: Hui Yan

Hui Yan, PhD joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as an Assistant Professor in August 2015, after post-doctoral experiences at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of South Carolina. She received her PhD in Environmental Chemistry (Environmental Health Sciences) in 2011 from the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Her teaching interests are in the areas of general, analytical, and physical chemistry. She is currently teaching general chemistry and general chemistry laboratory. She strives to motivate students by connecting the course contents to the real world, providing a comfortable learning environment, promoting good study skills, and periodically exchanging feedback with the students. She believes that teaching must be based on the student's level and interest, and that practice/hands-on experience is necessary for understanding concepts and fundamentals in the experimental sciences, i.e., chemistry.

Dr. Yan's research merges the general areas of surface science and environmental analytical chemistry, and focuses on the fundamental understanding of adsorbate-surface/adsorbate-adsorbate interactions at surfaces, relevant to heterogeneous catalysis and environmental surface reactions, on the atomic and molecular levels. The topics of her ongoing and future research interests can be categorized into the following: (1) heterogeneous environmental chemistry: at air-organic surfaces of organic aerosols,to provide better inputs for modeling atmospheric processes and global climate change, and at air-oil surfaces,to understand the degradation process of oil spill; (2) heterogeneous catalysis, to provide fundamental understanding for achieving sustainable energy; and (3) fabrication and characterization of functional nanomaterials, to contribute to the development of new instruments in surface analysis.

Contact Dr. Yan or learn more through these links:
huiyan@louisiana.edu
Chemistry department site