By Niki Jennings, MSE Communications Specialist
Prof. Yaroslava G. Yingling can now proudly add Distinguished Professor to her impressive list of titles in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University. In January 2022, Dr. Yingling was appointed as Distinguished Professor. Her other titles include tenured Professor of Materials Science and Engineering (since 2007), a founding Director of Graduate Certificate in Materials Informatics (2020-present), a Director of Undergraduate Program (2019-present), and an Associate Department Head for Scholarship and Education (2021-present), and University Faculty Scholar. Also in January 2022, Dr. Yingling received an NSF grant to fund a new Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program for Materials Engineering with Data Science (MAT-DAT), to begin in Summer 2022. In 2021, Prof. Yingling received the NC State University Alumni Association Outstanding Research Award and was inducted into the NC State University Research Leadership Academy.
Prof. Yara Yingling leads an active interdisciplinary research program that focuses on the development of materials informatics methods, advanced computational models, and novel multiscale molecular modeling approaches for investigations of properties and processes in composite, soft and biological materials. Yingling and her students have actively engaged in a variety of projects exploring assembly of biomolecules on surfaces and interfaces, ab-initio design of nanomaterials for industrial and pharmaceutical applications, de novo biomolecular structure prediction, development of advanced multiscale methods for the prediction of properties, and responsive behavior of functional complex materials, and application of data science techniques to heterogeneous and multi-technique characterization data. She is a tenured Professor of Materials Science and Engineering (since 2007), a founding Director of Graduate Certificate in Materials Informatics (2020-present), a Director of Undergraduate Program (2019-present), and an Associate Department Head for Scholarship and Education (2021-present). She leads a sustainable research group of 10-15 students, postdoctoral researchers, and visitors supported by projects funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and private industries. During her tenure at NC State University, she won, led, and participated in many research projects as PI or co-PI with total funding of more than $92M, which includes 5 major DOE and NSF centers. She co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals from the fields of Materials Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Data Science, and Biophysics. Prof. Yingling has given more than 100 invited, plenary, and keynote lectures and seminars at other universities, national laboratories, and national and international meetings, which span multiple disciplines and research topics.
As part of her professional services, she organized many professional conferences and workshops at MRS, APS, and ACS National Meetings and elsewhere; and served/s on Editorial Advisory Boards of 5 professional journals with current EAB appointments at MRS 360, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering and MDPI Data. She is an Editor of a high-impact journal, Journal of Materials Science, Springer, since 2018 and a Founding Editor-in-chief for AIMS Materials Science and former Associate Editor for RNA and DNA Nanotechnology.
Dr. Yingling received her Ph.D. in Materials Engineering and High-Performance Computing from the Pennsylvania State University in 2002, and her University Diploma in Computer Science and Engineering from St. Petersburg State Technical University of Russia. She carried out postdoctoral research at Penn State University Chemistry Department and at the National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute prior to joining North Carolina State University in 2007. She is an Editor for Springer Journal of Materials Science and an Editorial Board Member of ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering and ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. She has received the National Science Foundation CAREER award, and the American Chemical Society Open Eye Young Investigator Award.