Role at ANSTO
Dr. Yang Cao is a beamline scientist at the Australian Synchrotron’s Advanced Diffraction and Scattering beamlines. Her role involves assisting with the design and commissioning activities at the two ADS beamlines. Once the beamlines are operational, she will support the user experiments and development of the beamlines.
Dr Cao’s research interest involves developing novel 2D-materials-based assemblies for applications including supercapacitors, batteries, ion separation membranes and bioelectronics. She has diverse characterization and analytical technique expertise for probing nanostructured materials to unravel structure-property relationships. This enables the identification of underlying mechanisms to rationally design nanostructures for unprecedent performance. Her expertise includes electrochemical characterization and synchrotron-based X-ray analysis (SXAS/WAXS, IR), XRD, Raman and Rheometry. Dr Cao is also experienced in developing the in-situ characterization platform based on XRD and SAXS to understand the microstructure evolution of nanostructured materials and ion transport behaviours therein during electrochemical measurements.
Additionally, Dr. Cao’s research interest concerns various x-ray techniques, particularly XRD-CT, 3D XRD and DCT, which combines x-ray diffraction with computed tomography data acquisition to spatially resolve diffraction data.
Expertise
X-ray diffraction, SAXS, 2D materials, laminar membranes, colloidal chemistry, nanostructure characterization, electrochemistry, energy storage and ion transport.
Qualifications
- Postdoctoral research fellow, Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Melbourne (2023-2024)
- Shortlisted participant in the Asian Deans’ Forum-The Rising Stars Women in Engineering, Tokyo, Japan (2023)
- Runner Up Presentation Award at 1st Victorian Electrochemistry Symposium, Royal Australian Chemical Institute, Australia (2022)
- PhD in Chemical Engineering, The University of Melbourne (2018-2022)
- Bachelor of Materials Engineering (Hons), Monash University (2016-2017)
- Bachelor of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University (2013-2015)