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Forward-thinking materials scientist Yan Yao, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Houston's Cullen College of Engineering, is the recipient of the 2025 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Engineering from TAMEST. He was chosen for creating environmental and sustainable solutions for lithium-ion battery technology.

See a video with Dr. Yao speaking about his work on YouTube here!

The world runs on lithium-ion batteries, but their dependence on scarce resources, like lithium, cobalt and nickel creates environmental challenges. These critical minerals require intensive mining and are not renewable. To combat this, Yao’s research focuses on discovering new materials and storage mechanisms for batteries based on abundant materials while creating energy storage solutions that reduce reliance on critical resources and have a positive environmental impact.

Yao and his team started by looking at materials available at scale and developing methods to design and synthesize new materials with tunable electrochemical responses and transport properties similar to those in lithium-ion batteries. By learning to control reactivity at interfaces, his team demonstrated sustainable batteries that outperform traditional battery technologies.

Building on advances in materials development and mechanistic understanding, his team developed aqueous batteries, which use water as an electrolyte, making them inexpensive, nonflammable and abundant. By utilizing materials such as sodium and magnesium, which can be extracted from seawater and are largely available in the United States, his team is creating renewable energy storage solutions that are cheaper, safer and less energy intensive to produce without worry of supply chain issues.

“As energy demands from electric vehicles and grid storage continues to escalate, the importance of producing more environmentally friendly batteries has never been greater,” said nominator Pradeep Sharma, Dean of the Cullen College of Engineering and Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Professor. “Dr. Yao is tackling critical scientific challenges and is focused on developing technologies that power a sustainable, better future. His inventions, including aqueous organic batteries, magnesium batteries and solid-state sodium batteries, will undoubtedly have an enormous impact on environmental and energy sustainability.”

“The Edith and Peter O’Donnell Awards are a huge award in our state, and it is extremely competitive due to the fact that Texas has many talented scientists deserving of this award,” said Edith and Peter O’Donnell Awards Committee Chair Margaret “Peggy” A. Goodell, Baylor College of Medicine, who herself received the O’Donnell Award in Medicine in 2011. “I’ve seen firsthand how impactful these awards can be to a young researcher in our state, and it is an honor to help carry the tradition to the next generation. These five researchers are truly among the best and brightest in Texas, and we can’t wait to see where their careers take them from here.”

More than $1.5 million has been awarded to more than 75 recipients in the categories of Medicine, Engineering, Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences and Technology Innovation since the inception of the O'Donnell Awards in 2006. Sixteen O’Donnell Awards recipients have gone on to be elected to the National Academies, including five who have been elected to more than one National Academy.

The recipients will be honored at the 2025 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Awards Ceremony and give presentations on their research at the TAMEST 2025 Annual Conference: Transformational Breakthroughs, at the Westin Las Colinas in Irving, Texas.

All are welcome to register to attend the ceremony and the TAMEST Conference.

About the O'Donnell Awards:

The Edith and Peter O’Donnell Awards annually recognize rising star Texas researchers who are addressing the essential role that science and technology play in society, and whose work meets the highest standards of exemplary professional performance, creativity and resourcefulness.

Thanks to a $1.15 million gift from the O’Donnell Foundation in 2022, the O’Donnell Awards have expanded to include an additional science award. The awards now recognize recipients in the categories of Medicine, Engineering, Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences and Technology Innovation. (Previously, the TAMEST O’Donnell Awards rotated its science award between physical and biological sciences every year.)

The Edith and Peter O’Donnell Awards are made possible by the O’Donnell Awards Endowment, established in 2005 through the generous support of several individuals and organizations. View a full list of supporters here.

About TAMEST:

TAMEST was co-founded in 2004 by the Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison and Nobel Laureates Michael S. Brown, M.D., and Richard E. Smalley, Ph.D. With more than 345 members, eight Nobel Laureates and 23 member institutions, TAMEST is composed of the Texas-based members of the three National Academies (National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences) and other honorific organizations. The organization brings together the state’s brightest minds in medicine, engineering, science and technology to foster collaboration, and to advance research, innovation and business in Texas.

TAMEST’s unique interdisciplinary model has become an effective recruitment tool for top research and development centers across Texas. Since our founding, more than 300 TAMEST members have been inducted into the National Academies or relocated to Texas.