Xianghong Qian

Xianghong Qian is an associate professor and Robert E. Babcock, Sr. Professorship in Ralph Martin Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas. She has a BS degree in Chemistry from Nanjing University, China and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry from the George Washington University, USA. She did her postdoctoral research in Condensed Matter Theory at the Max-Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics, Germany. Dr. Qian’s major research interests focus on investigating the fundamental processes involved in catalytic conversion of biomass to biofuels, smart polymers for drug delivery and generating antifouling surfaces, and biomedical research involving protein folding and misfolding using theoretical and computational techniques. Ab initio and classical molecular dynamics simulation methods combined with static quantum mechanical calculations are used to elucidate the many underlying chemical and biochemical processes at the molecular level. She is the recipient of 2009 NSF CAREER award and has over 50 peer-reviewed journal publications.