Jingguang Chen

Jingguang Chen is a Chinese-American chemical engineer. He is the Thayer Lindsley Professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University, with a joint appointment as Senior Chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering of the United States. Over the course of his career, he has made significant contributions to the fundamental understanding and use of novel materials for catalytic and electrocatalytic applications, including research into the development of bimetallic and transition metal carbide catalysts.

Education After earning his Bachelors of Science in chemistry from Nanjing University in 1982, Chen was selected by the China–USA Chemistry Graduate Program (CGP) for graduate studies in the US.

He received his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh in 1988 under the guidance of American surface scientist John Yates. and served several leadership roles including director of the Center for Catalytic Science and Technology (CCST) He has also held a joint appointment at the chemistry department of Brookhaven National Lab since 2012. transition metal carbides, and metal-modified carbide catalysts. Chen and his research group have made many discoveries relating to monolayer (ML) bimetallic catalysts, which are tunable materials where a single atomic layer (i.e. monolayer) of one metal is deposited on the surface or subsurface of a second material. Chen has developed these and other catalytic materials for a wide range of applications, including in developing tunable, low-cost (electro)catalysts for the production and use of clean fuels such as hydrogen (made from water electrolysis), nitrogen-based fuels, and methanol or CO (made from CO2).

Some of Chen's research efforts involve a combination of theory and ultra-high vacuum (UHV) surface science tools to gain fundamental understanding of the chemical, physical, and electronic structures of the catalytic materials he studies. Chen's research also commonly relies on X-ray synchrotron techniques, such as X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) to better understand the atomic structure of catalytic and electrocatalytic materials under reaction conditions. As of 2025, Chen has been an inventor or co-inventor of over 20 United States patents and published over 500 peer-reviewed papers (h-index=124).

Awards Russell and Siguard Varian Fellow (American Vacuum Society), 1986 Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis, North American Catalysis Society, 2017 Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2023 Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering, 2024