UCSB Materials Welcomes Professor Xi Dai

Friday, January 29, 2021

The UCSB Materials Department welcomes Professor Xi Dai, to the Department. Prof. Dai is a leading expert in the theory of quantum materials.

Prof. Dai's many seminal contributions to the field of topological materials are based on his taking abstract theoretical concepts about topological matter and mapping them onto real world materials. Specifically, he has predicted several classes of new topological materials that have spawned a profusion of experimental activities worldwide. For example, his work has led to a "second generation" of topological material classes, namely the topological semimetals Na3Bi (a three-dimensional Dirac semimetal) and TaAs (a Weyl semimetal).

Prof. Dai is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and recently received the McGroddy Prize for New Materials from APS in recognition of his work in topological matter. He is listed as one of the 2020 Highly Cited Researchers as determined by the Web of Science Group.

Prof. Dai's group will benefit from the strongly collaborative environment of the Materials Department and expects to include collaborations with groups in Physics at UCSB at the UCSB NSF Quantum Foundry.

Prof. Dai joins us from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) where he was a Chair Professor in Physics. Prior to joining HKUST, he was a Distinguished Professor of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prof. Dai received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and was a post-doctoral researcher at Rutgers University, Boston College and HKUST.

Welcome, Professor Dai!