Pengfei Cao, a polymer chemist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been chosen to receive a 2021 Young Investigator Award from the Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Division of the American Chemical Society, or ACS PMSE.
The distinction honors early-career emerging leaders who have made significant contributions in their respective fields within polymer materials science and engineering. Selected scientists and engineers from academia, national labs and industry are within seven years of beginning their independent careers. Cao is among only 14 researchers chosen from an international pool to receive the prize, which consists of a monetary award and a certificate.
An expert in the design and synthesis of polymeric materials with controlled architectures and defined properties, Cao is the first ORNL scientist to win the award. In 2016, he joined the Soft Materials Group of ORNL’s Chemical Sciences Division as a postdoctoral research associate and was hired as a staff scientist in 2019.