Blavatnik Award 2021

Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering Professor Guihua Yu, has just been selected for the 2021 Class of the prestigious Blavatnik National Awards Honorees for Young Scientists.

Showcasing America’s most promising young scientists and engineers in Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, and Chemistry, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences named 31 finalists for the world’s largest unrestricted prize honoring early-career scientists and engineers. The honorees this year, selected from 298 nominations of outstanding researchers from 157 United States leading research institutions across 38 states, have made trailblazing discoveries in wide-ranging fields. One Blavatnik Laureate in each disciplinary category will receive $250,000 in unrestricted funds.

The Blavatnik awards recognize the past accomplishments and future promise of the most talented faculty-rank scientists and engineers aged 42 years and younger at America's top academic and research institutions. The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, established by the Blavatnik Family Foundation in the U.S. in 2007 and independently administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, began by identifying outstanding regional scientific talent in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The Blavatnik National Awards were first awarded in 2014. By the close of 2021, the Blavatnik Awards will have awarded prizes totaling $11.9 million. Sixty-one percent of all Award recipients are immigrants to the country in which they were recognized and hail from 47 countries across six continents, reflecting the Blavatnik Family Foundation’s recognition that important science is a global enterprise. 

Yu was cited for his significant contributions to ‘the development on designing sustainable polymer technologies to address vital energy and environmental problems facing society. He has created an exciting new line of polymeric materials, called energy hydrogels. Yu has pioneered an unprecedented level of multi-functionality in these materials, including the transmission of electricity via controlling their electron and ion transport. By simply tuning the way the polymer and water molecules interact, Yu’s hydrogel technologies have achieved record-breaking solar evaporation rates—as solar steam generators—in seawater desalination and water purification, solar-powered water-harvesters for sustainable agriculture, and next-generation energy storage materials for flexible, wearable electronics.’

The 2021 honorees will be celebrated at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on Sept. 27-28, 2021. Let us help congratulate Dr. Guihua Yu!