YuanQiao Rao

Bio:

YuanQiao Rao is Professor and Chair of the Polymer Engineering and Science and Plastics Engineering Technology Department at Penn State Behrend. Before joining Penn State, he spent more than 20 years in industrial R&D at Dow and Eastman Kodak, most recently as a Senior R&D Fellow at Dow. Her work spans polymer materials, advanced manufacturing, membranes, microelectronics, sustainability, and AI-enabled materials and process development. She is an ACS Fellow and has received numerous innovation awards, including an R&D 100 Award and an Edison Award. At Penn State, she is developing research and education programs that connect materials innovation, manufacturing, data, and artificial intelligence.

Why Penn State is signing:

Penn State is joining EES2 because the challenges facing the energy and technology sectors increasingly require integrated solutions across materials, manufacturing, data, artificial intelligence, and workforce development. Penn State brings broad capabilities across these areas, from fundamental materials discovery to processing, scale-up, reliability, and deployment. Through EES2, we look forward to working with DOE, industry, national laboratories, and other universities to translate these capabilities into solutions for emerging energy, data center, microelectronics, and advanced manufacturing needs.