CCS Chemistry | Author Spotlight-东北师范大学 臧宏瑛教授

Q1: Who helped you the most as you pursued your research career?

Prof. Zang:  My supervisors, Prof. Zhong-Min Su and Prof. Leroy Cronin played very important roles in my research career. They taught me the attitude to be sucessful in science, to be patient in facing difficulties, and the style of research work I should pursue. My mentors Dr. Deliang Long, Dr. Haralampos N. Miras, Prof. Yaqian Lan and my friends have helped me a lot since the start of my early research.

Q2: Who stands out as the most beautiful chemist in your mind? What did you learn from her?

Prof. Zang: I think Youyou Tu stands out as the most beautiful chemist. Her perseverance, her dedication to and interest in science and her disinterest in profit deeply influenced me. When I was pregnant, I decided to give my baby her name, if I had a baby girl. However, I had a baby boy, so I named him Luming, which is still related to her name. Now in China, more and more female scientists are following her step and making great contributions to science. Their creative minds and active attitudes are worthy of learning.

Q3: What are some difficult challenges you have faced during your research career? How did you overcome them?

Prof. Zang:  It is difficult to start a completely new project and persuade students to stick to it with you. But, I still believe that the beauty of science is about exploration of the unknown. I tried to persuade my students to try different reaction designs and conditions to pursue new knowledge. Although we sometimes cannot reach the goal, we could still, to our surprise, obtain something new. In addition, it is not easy to persuade the editors and reviewers that our discoveries are important, especially in top journals. But, we believe that time can tell everything.

Q4: What advice or encouragement would you give to female students pursuing careers in scientific research?

Prof. Zang: I always encourage my female students who love science to pursue their dreams. Although traditional values are haunting us, we should stick to our dream and realize it. Female researchers can be as creative as male and bring perseverance to research. I believe that female researchers with great dreams are more charming.

Q5: Thank you for publishing your superb work in CCS Chemistry!  Could you provide a brief summary of your article and current research direction in a few sentences?

Prof. Zang: We are endeavoring to study the function-directed controlled self-assembly process of dynamic metal-oxide building blocks. We also explore the possible application of metal-oxide clusters in energy conversion and storage devices, such as polyoxometalate-based ionic conductors, polyoxometalate-derived electrocatalayts for small molecule conversions.

Learn more：Dongming Cheng, Bo Li, Sai Sun, Li-Jie Zhu, Ying Li, Xing-Long Wu & Hong-Ying Zang*(臧宏瑛). Proton-Conducting Polyoxometalates as Redox Electrolytes Synergistically Boosting the Performance of Self-Healing Solid-State Supercapacitors with Polyaniline. CCS Chem. 2020, 2, 1649–1658.

Link:  https://doi.org/10.31635/ccschem.020.202000311