COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- A Texas A&M University electrical engineer studying high-temperature superconductors will receive one of the first 21 research grants awarded by the Air Force Research Office’s Young Investigator Research Program (YIP). Haiyan Wang, an assistant professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will use her three-year grant -- part of a new $6.3 million program intended to encourage outstanding young science and engineering researchers to conduct basic research -- to study the new superconductors, flat ribbons of metal coated with yttrium barium copper oxide. The new conductors are expected to be able to carry three to five times as much current than conventional power cables and do it at higher temperatures than earlier versions. The new superconductors are important to development of new Air Force energy weapons and the U.S. Navy’s Electric Warships and Combat Vehicles programs. They also should make possible more-efficient and less-expensive power generators, high-frequency source magnets, transformers and electric motors. Wang joined the electrical and computer engineering department in January 2006. She is also a researcher in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Division of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station, the engineering research agency of the State of Texas and a member of The Texas A&M University System. Before coming to Texas A&M, Wang was on the staff of the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow and a permanent staff member. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Nanchang University (China) and a master’s degree from the Institute of Metal Research (China). She received the Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering from North Carolina State University.
