Naihao Chiang, an assistant professor in the University of Houston Department of Chemistry, has been selected to receive the 2026 Peter Mark Memorial Award from AVS for research that is helping scientists see and understand materials at the molecular level in new ways.
The Peter Mark Memorial Award is one of AVS’s premier professional honors for early-career scientists and engineers. Chiang was recognized for his contributions to tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and its extension to scanning ion-conductance microscopy — advanced imaging techniques that allow scientists to examine materials at extremely small scales.
At the heart of Chiang’s work is a challenge: Many important chemical and biological processes happen at scales too small for conventional microscopes to fully capture.
Chiang and his collaborators have developed a microscopic technique that can reveal both the structure and chemical identity of soft materials at the nanoscale. Using custom-made nanopipettes as probes, researchers can examine how molecules are arranged and interact at specific locations and identify their unique chemical fingerprints. The team has also extended the approach to liquid environments, where many important chemical and biological processes occur.
“It allows us to uncover molecular details that conventional microscopes cannot resolve and that larger-scale measurements often average out,” Chiang said.
Those molecular-level insights could ultimately have applications in both energy and human health. Understanding what happens where an electrode meets a liquid, for example, could help scientists design more efficient catalysts. At the cellular level, examining interactions at cell membranes could deepen scientists’ understanding of therapeutic materials and how substances can be delivered into individual cells.
At UH, Chiang and his students are continuing to develop scientific instruments to, as he describes it, “see the unseen.” His group is studying what happens at the boundaries where solids and liquids meet, such as between an electrode and a liquid, and exploring minimally invasive approaches for delivering materials into human cells. Future work will also examine how cell membranes respond to disruption and repair themselves, as well as molecular interactions involved in energy conversion, storage and biosensing.
“None of this work would be possible without talented students in our department,” Chiang said.
Chiang will receive the award during the AVS 72nd International Symposium and Exhibition in Pittsburgh in November.
“To be included in this tradition early in my career is an extraordinary honor and a reminder of how much I still hope to contribute,” Chiang said. “I am grateful to my mentors, students and collaborators, and I hope to honor that legacy through our research and the students we train at UH.”