2024
10/24/24 - Dr. Liu, on behalf of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of Cal State LA, has been awarded the 2024 Jean Dreyfus Lectureship Award! This award will support a two-day lectureship given by a top researcher in Chemistry, Dr. Omar Farha, from Northwestern University. It will also support the summer research of two undergraduate students at Cal State LA!
10/24/24 - Our Chem Comm paper was accepted and was published as part of ChemComm's themed collection "Emerging Trends in MOFs"! This project was led and completed by undergraduate students at Cal State LA. Congratulations, Alisa and Doroteo, as co-first authors, and Anna, Edgar, Pavi, and Matthew as coauthors! Read the paper here.
8/20/24 - The Liu lab welcomes seven new graduate students who joined us this Fall semester: Andy (CHEM), Naomi (CHEM), Luis (CHEM), Doroteo Manriquez (MSE), Kaycee (MSE), Maricruz (MSE), and Alvaro (MSE). We look forward to the exciting discoveries you will make in the next two years!
8/3/24 - Congratulations to our summer students, Sebastian, Tommy, Christian, and Mari (pictures from left to right), for successfully completing their summer programs with REU poster/oral presentations at the Summer 2024 Symposium! Christian also won a second-place award for his poster presentation! Thank you, student mentors: Matthew, Jesus, Emily/Tristan, and Pavi/Doroteo!
7/30/24 - In collaboration with professors from Engineering and Chemistry, the Liu lab was awarded an NSF PREM grant! Dr. Liu is a co-PI for NSF PREM Center for Bioinspired and Architectured Materials (CBAM). The PI is Dr. Travis Hu from Mechanical Engineering. This new award will broaden the participation of underrepresented minority students and build the U.S. workforce in materials research with advanced training in strategic areas of science and technology. Congratulations! Read the news release.
7/29/24 - Congratulations to Tristan, who has successfully defended his thesis! Tristan will be moving to Texas to start his PhD with Dr. Shengqian Ma. We wish you the best!
5/22/24 - Dr. Liu was awarded a Provost's Faculty Fellow Award. This ward will support our research in gene delivery using porous nanoMOFs. Thanks to Cal State LA!
5/10/24 - Congratulations to Angel, who has successfully defended his Master's thesis!
3/30/24 - The Liu lab welcomes our new postdoc, Maggie Yao! Maggie graduated with a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Alabama. She will be leading the hydrogen storage project.
3/12/2024 - Many of our students presented their research at the Annual Student Symposium on Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities. You all did a great job! Matthew Tang won an Outstanding Poster Presentation Award! Congratulations, everyone!
2023
8/10/2023 - Our review paper on using MOFs to fight infectious diseases is published on ACS Applied Bio Materials Today! This paper was led and written by Cal State LA undergraduate students. Congrats Nikita, Alisa, Anna and Edgar! Read the paper.
8/7/2023 - Dr. Liu was awarded a $750,000 grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE FAIR) to work on carbon capture research! This research will promote student research at Cal State LA and offer student internships at Ames National Laboratory. This award and Liu lab were featured in the University News. Read the news.
8/4/2023 - Congratulations to our summer students, Cristina, Aatikah and Kimberly, for successfully completing their summer programs with REU poster presentations today at the Summer 2023 Symposium!
8/4/2023 - Congratulations to Jin and Hannah! Our second-year Master's students, Jin and Hannah passed their Master's thesis defenses today!
8/4/2023 - Congratulations, Pavithra! Our first-year Master's student Pavithra passed her prospectus today!
7/24/2023 - Congratulations, Jesus and Matthew! Our first-year Master's students Jesus and Matthew passed their prospectus today!
06/10/2023 - Liu Group welcomes summer students! This summer, we are hosting two REU students, Cristina Martinez from Rio Hondo College and Aatikah Parise from Los Angeles Harbor College, and one high school student (TRIO-Upward Bound Program), Kimberly Robinson from South Pasadena High School. Cristina will be working with our graduate student, Benji, and postdoc, Dr. Divar, on hydrogen storage with porous materials. Aatikah and Kimberly will be working with our graduate student, Emily, on drug delivery with nanomaterials. Welcome to the lab!
5/26/2023 - Congratulations, Tristan! Our first-year Master's student, Tristan, successfully defended his prospectus today! Way to go!