Rate My Professor Yan Wang

Yan Wang is the William Smith Foundation Dean’s Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, with an affiliated appointment in Materials Science and Engineering. He holds a B.S. from Tianjin University in 2001, an M.S. from Tianjin University in 2004, a Ph.D. from the University of Windsor in 2009, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2009 to 2010. Wang directs the Electrochemical Energy Laboratory, established in 2010, where his team develops advanced materials and processes for next-generation energy storage technologies.

Wang's research centers on lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries, supercapacitors, flow batteries, electrolysis, fundamental electrochemistry, battery manufacturing, safety, and recycling of batteries, solar panels, fuel cells, and electrolyzers to promote industry sustainability. Notable contributions include a scalable, cleaner process for lithium-ion battery recycling published in the inaugural Nature Reviews Clean Technology in 2025, solvent-free electrode manufacturing methods, and demonstrations that recycled battery materials outperform virgin materials, as detailed in Joule in 2021. He has secured patents including 'Developing Additive Manufactured Battery Electrodes' and 'High Performance Electrode Manufacturing Method.' Wang has commercialized lab technologies by co-founding Ascend Elements Inc. and AM Batteries Inc. His accolades encompass Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2025), Tech Power Players 50 (2024), Faces of American Innovation from the Bayh-Dole Coalition (2023), Manufacturing Champion from Worcester Business Journal (2023), Better World Project Award (2022), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2022), Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors (2022), and the Board of Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Scholarship (2019).