Wonhyeong Kim

Wonhyeong Kim of the University of Arizona is among the more than 20 society and division award winners being recognized at the 248th ECS Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, USA from October 12-16, 2025. This award recognizes promising graduate students for conducting outstanding research in the field of sensors.

Wonhyeong was selected for his outstanding contributions to the development of molecularly imprinted polymer-based sensors and advancements in wearable electrochemical sensor technologies. His award talk, Development of Molecularly Imprinted Polymer (MIP)-Based Sensors for the Sensitive and Selective Detection of Analytes, will be presented on Monday, October 13. You can view his award talk abstract and learn more about Wonhyeong here. (more…)

Yaoli Zhao

The 2023 winner of the ECS Sensor Division Student Research Award is Yaoli Zhao of the University of Buffalo for her contributions to developing a new method for standoff and point detection of chemicals by combining photothermal and photoacoustic effects with microfabricated cantilever beams to simultaneously achieve very high molecular selectivity and very high sensitivity.  She will be recognized at the 245th ECS Meeting in San Francisco, CA, and deliver her award talk there.

Yaoli Zhao is a PhD student working in Thomas Thundat’s University at Buffalo lab, specializing in the field of chemical detection. Her current research focuses on developing innovative standoff detection sensors, specifically for plastic classification. Zhao successfully developed techniques and demonstrated methods for molecular identification of plastics, which resulted in the publication of multiple research papers in refereed journals including one as a corresponding author in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. (more…)