Academic Degrees Postdoc: Los Alamos National Laboratory (Materials Physics & Applications, Dr. Andrew Dattelbaum and Dr. Piotr Zelenay) Ph. D.: Rice University (Chemistry Department, Prof. Pulickel M. Ajayan) B.S. and M.S.: Nanjing University (Chemistry and Analytcial Chemistry, Prof. Xing-Hua Xia) Teaching Dr. Gao will be teaching or co-teaching in courses PCC 412/414 and TMS 763.

Wei Gao, an assistant professor in the Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science, earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from Rice University in 2012. She did her postdoctoral research in the Materials Physics & Applications (MPA) Division at Los Alamos National Lab, as a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow. She obtained her B.S. and M.S. in Analytical Chemistry from Nanjing University, China. Dr. Gao’s research interests lie at the interface between Materials Chemistry, Textile Engineering and renewable energy-related technologies, such as supercapacitors, batteries and fuel cells. Her current research directions include: Graphene/graphene oxide based energy storage systems (supercapacitors, batteries) and their integrations with various textiles for smart bodysuit prototypes Protonic conducting membranes based on graphene derivatives for hydrogen-air fuel cells Quantum dot synthesis for sensing, catalysis and biological applications

Lu, Y., Lin, Y. L., Chen, Z. W., Hu, Q. Y., Liu, Y., Yu, S. J., Gao, W., Dickey, M. D., & Gu, Z. (2017). Enhanced endosomal escape by light-fueled liquid-metal transformer. Nano Letters, 17(4), 2138-2145. Pan, Q., Shim, E., Pourdeyhimi, B., & Gao, W. (2017). Nylon-graphene composite nonwovens as monolithic conductive or capacitive fabrics. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 9(9), 8308-8316. He, N. F., Yildiz, O., Pan, Q., Zhu, J. D., Zhang, X. W., Bradford, P. D., & Gao, W. (2017). Pyrolytic-carbon coating in carbon nanotube foams for better performance in supercapacitors. Journal of Power Sources, 343, 492-501. Pan, Q., Chung, C. C., He, N. F., Jones, J. L., & Gao, W. (2016). Accelerated thermal decomposition of graphene oxide films in air via in situ x-ray diffraction analysis. Journal of Physical Chemistry. C, 120(27), 14984-14990. Gao, W., Havas, D., Gupta, S., Pan, Q., He, N. F., Zhang, H. G., Wang, H. L., & Wu, G. (2016). Is reduced graphene oxide favorable for nonprecious metal oxygen-reduction catalysts?. Carbon, 102, 346-356. del Pino, A. P., Gyorgy, E., Logofatu, C., Puigmarti-Luis, J., & Gao, W. (2015). Laser-induced chemical transformation of graphene oxide-iron oxide nanoparticles composites deposited on polymer substrates. Carbon, 93, 373-383.