Functional Nanometer-Sized Clusters of Transition Metals

Wei Chen received his Ph.D. in electrochemistry from Xiamen University under the direction of Professor Shi-Gang Sun in 2003. Following his graduate studies, he began working as a postdoctoral associate in the area of synthesis and the property studies of metal nanoclusters at University of California-Santa Cruz. He is currently a full professor at State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include the controlled synthesis, characterization, and applications of nanomaterials, especially the metal nanoclusters, in fuel cells, solar cells, optical devices; interfacial engineering and electron transfer properties of functional metal nanoparticles; surface electrochemistry, electroanalytical chemistry and spectroelectrochemistry.


Shaowei Chen completed his undergraduate education at the University of Science and Technology of China with a B.Sc. degree in Chemical Physics in 1991. He then attended Cornell University, receiving his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry in 1993 and 1996, respectively. Following a postdoctoral appointment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he started his independent career in 1998 in Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. He moved to the University of California - Santa Cruz in 2004 and is currently a Professor of Chemistry. His research is mainly focused on nanoscale functional materials and their electron transfer chemistry. So far he has published more than 100 research articles in peer-reviewed journals, co-edited two monographs and contributed five book chapters.