Faculty Profiles

Functional nanostructured materials, nanowires, nanophotonics, and biomimetic materials. She works in nanophotonics and optics at the nanoscale, in the synthesis and assembly of platonic nanocrystals, and in developing nanowires for sensing applications.

Capsule Bio:

Dr. Tao is a professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at UC San Diego. She earned her A.B. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard University in 2002 and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2007 where she conducted her dissertation research on colloidal synthesis and self-assembly. She was a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Santa Barbara in the interdisciplinary program of Biomolecular Science & Engineering, where she studied the dynamic camouflage mechanisms of cephalopods. Her research interests lie in the discovery and development of new nanomaterials for plasmonics, where light is propagated, manipulated, and confined by nanocomponents that are smaller than the wavelength of light itself. She is the author of Chemical Principles of Nanoengineering, the preeminent textbook for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in materials science, chemical engineering, chemistry, and related fields. She was the recipient of a DARPA Young Faculty Award, a Sloan Fellowship in Chemistry, and the Chemical and Nano Engineering Department Teacher of the Year Award.