Feng Lin, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, has been named the Leo and Melva Harris Faculty Fellow by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The Leo and Melva Harris Faculty Fellowship was established by the College of Science Roundtable Advisory Board in 2021 in memory of long-time member Leo Harris and in honor of his wife, Melva. The fellowship supports the recruitment, development, and retention of outstanding tenured and tenure-track faculty and provides support and recognition of faculty scholarship in any discipline or transdisciplinary area in the College of Science. 

Recipients hold the fellowship for a period of three years and is renewable.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2016, Lin’s interdisciplinary research is focused on materials for energy and sustainability, which is of worldwide current interest due to its application in advancing electrochemical energy systems and battery technologies.

His research program aims to advance fundamental and practical knowledge for manufacturing new materials that can lower battery costs by using cheaper, more abundant raw materials. Of particular interest is research that will improve the affordability, convenience, reliability, and safety of electric vehicles.

Lin’s scholarship included more than 130 publications in peer-reviewed journals, six book chapters, four patents, and more than 70 invited presentations at universities, national laboratories, and conferences.

He is a member of the Macromolecules Innovation Institute and an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering.

Since coming to Virginia Tech, Lin has been principal investigator or co- principal investigator on grants from several agencies including the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Air Force.

Lin earned a bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering from China’s Tianjin University in 2009 and a Ph.D. in materials science from the Colorado School of Mines in 2012. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and worked as a senior member at QuantumScape before joining Virginia Tech.

Related stories

Feng Lin helps lead team asking, ‘How do we develop batteries with long life and fast-charging capability?’

Chemistry’s Feng Lin will use NSF CAREER grant to push development of sustainable rechargeable batteries

Powered by food (waste): Virginia Tech researchers discover potential method to convert food waste into batteries

Share this story