Faculty Focus: Ying Li

Ying Li is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and leads the Laboratory for Polymer Digital Engineering at UW-Madison. His research group mainly focuses on the analysis and simulation of materials to create new methods for investigating material behaviors spanning the atomic and microscopic scales, which can be used to discover and design new materials. Prof. Li believes that an enormous number of new materials, from which we could develop technologies that would fundamentally and dramatically improve human welfare, remain to be discovered.

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Mechanical Engineering Research – Ying Li

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IN TECHNICAL TERMS

What one project are you most excited about working on right now?

The most exciting project I have been working on is my Air Force Young Investigator Project, “Deep Reinforcement Learning for de novo Thermosetting Polymer Design”, which allows me to develop innovative machine-learning techniques for designing new polymeric materials. A grand challenge in designing these polymeric materials is the vast design space on the order of 10^100, defined by the almost infinite combinations of chemical elements, molecular structures, and synthesis conditions. To tackle this challenge, we use machine-learning techniques to build a meaningful chemistry-property relation for polymeric materials. Then, we utilize generative adversarial networks, combined with Reinforcement Learning models, for the inverse molecular design of innovative polymers. A recent story has more details about this project: With transparent machine learning tool, engineers accelerate polymer discovery – College of Engineering – University of Wisconsin-Madison

What do you think the impact will be on tech and society?

Polymeric materials are key enablers in aerospace, mechanical, civil, and environmental engineering, such as reverse osmosis membranes for water treatment and desalination, coatings for building skins, and antifouling materials, etc. Thus, we expect this work will benefit the broader scientific community and industry, which are interested in developing new types of polymers for medical, automotive, packaging, building and construction applications.

In particular, I was invited to give the plenary lecture for the coming Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) Annual Technical Meeting (ANTEC), St. Louis, MO in March 2024, which will allow me to connect with industry leaders in plastic engineering.

Learn more about Prof. Li’s lab via their newly published lab website.