Yinan Shu, Ph.D., receives Robin Hochstrasser Young Investigator Award

Yinan Shu, a post-doctoral researcher working with Professor Donald Truhlar, has received the Robin Hochstrasser Young Investigator Award. This was created by Elsevier Publishing to honor Robin Hochstrasser and support young scientists. It is given each year to a scientist working in chemical physics and younger than 40 years of age who does not have permanent professorship. The winner is selected by an international committee of scientists consisting of five members of the editorial board of Chemical Physics. Professor Robin Hochstrasser was the editor of Chemical Physics for almost four decades. He was a pioneer in the application of lasers in chemical and biomedical research and among his students was Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail.

Yinan was born in Hangzhou, China, and obtained Bachelor of Science degrees in chemistry and biological science from Wuhan University in 2011. After that, he studied at Michigan State University and obtained his doctorate in 2016 under the supervision of Professor Benjamin G. Levine. 

His research interests include: 

  • photochemistry and photophysics—understanding the behaviors of molecules and materials upon excitations;
  • electronic structure theory—multireference electronic structure theory, density functional theory;
  • nonadiabatic dynamics—mixed-quantum classical methods, decoherence, nuclear quantum effects; and 
  • machine learning in chemistry—database, benchmark, and machine learning to help develop better materials and better methods. 

Share