On July 4, Cui Yi, the tenure-track professor in Stanford, renowned as “the most influential scientific brain”, attended the 144 session of Optoelectronics Forum held by the Wuhan Optoelectronics Research Center and was employed as the consulting professor in HUST. Vice President Zhang Xinliang endowed him the agreement of employment.

Cui Yi made a report named “Application of Nanotechnology in Energy, Environment and Fabrics”. He pointed out that nanotechnology has become the most important basic technology, which is affecting and transforming a large number of application fields, bringing revolutionary power to the world. Cui Yi demonstrated the great application value of nanotechnology in today's energy and environment fields. The research group led by him researched the silicon-based anode material of high-capacity lithium-ion battery and designed 12 generations of sophisticated nano-structures to solve the challenges in the actual use of the material and successfully applied to the industry. In response to the problem of smog, Cui Yi developed a unique nanofiber filtration technology to achieve efficient filtration of PM 2.5 particles. In addition, he also used nanotechnology to achieve a clean water source for filtering heavy metals in water, and proposed a new development strategy for efficient extraction of uranium from sea water.

In the forum, Cui Yi showed a smart fabric for human thermal management which can keep warm or cool. He said that it was enough to wear a piece of clothing after going out humorously. This kind of clothes can keep you warm or help you dissipate heat when you wear it from different side, so it can adapt to different kinds of weather. Such a magical clothes can effectively reduce energy consumption, which received postive response.

In the questioning session, Cui Yi also shared his experience in leading a team, guiding students, and innovation. More than 600 teachers and students listened to the report, and Professor Sun Yongming presided over the forum.

At the ceremony, Zhang Xinliang said that Cui Yi is the world's top nanomaterial scientist. In recent years, he led the team to creatively integrate nanotechnology into energy, environment and other fields. The results are remarkable and he hopes that Cui’s participation can improve the academic level of materials, energy and other related disciplines in HUST promotes talent exchange and introducing. Cui Yi hopes to conduct in-depth exchanges and cooperation with our school in academic research, education, talents cultivation, innovation and entrepreneurship. Professor Zhou Jun introduced Cui Yi’s academic achievements in related fields such as energy and environment at the ceremony. Professor Tang Jiang presided over the ceremony.

Cui Yi received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2002. He joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University in 2005 and received tenure in 2010. He is mainly engaged in research on nanomaterial in energy, photovoltaics, topological insulation materials, biology and the environment. . He is a Fellow of the American Society of Materials, a Fellow of the American Electrochemical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is the Associate Editor of the world-renowned scientific journal Nano-News. Cui Yi published more than 400 papers, including 8 Science, 2 Nature, 73 Nature Journals, and 6 Science Journals. It has been cited more than 120,000 times, with an H factor of 164 and more than 40 international patents. In 2014, Thomson Reuters Group published the list of "Highly-Cited Researchers" in the global material science field. Cui Yi ranked first among the list, and was hailed as "the most influential scientific brain in the world”.

It is reported that the research team led by Cui Yi has used nanotechnology to make a lot of originality in the research fields of energy (energy conversion, storage and conservation), environment (air, water and soil purification) and functional textiles in the past decades. He has many original ideas and conducted in-depth research according to them.