Shouliang Yi

Shouliang Yi is a senior energy and water scientist who left the US Department of Energy for China in early 2025, taking up a new role as Hai Na Distinguished Professor at Sichuan University following an escalation in US-China tensions. He had previously spent five years as principal scientist and project leader for the Water-Energy Programme at the DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Pittsburgh, resigning in June 2023 before briefly serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh and founding American Sustainable Membrane Technology as its CEO.

At NETL, Yi's research centered on developing novel membrane- and sorbent-based materials to support the Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) programme and broader water management initiatives. He is a recipient of China's National Overseas High-Level Talent Programme, previously known as the "Thousand Talents Plan."

At Sichuan University — an institution on the US Entity List — Yi now leads the Green Low-Carbon Separation Technology and CCUS Innovation Team, working on advanced separation technologies including high-performance membrane materials, porous functional materials, carbon capture and conversion, energy storage, and ion-selective separation, with his lab also exploring AI and machine learning applications in these areas.