Dr. Zhe Qiang is the Southern Society of Coating Technology Assistant Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Polymer Engineering from the University of Akron, and was a postdoc fellow at Northwestern University. His group’s current research interests include materials and manufacturing science of polymers and their derived functional materials for the sustainable development of environment and society, including industrial decarbonization and waste recycling. Since the start of his independent career in 2019, Dr. Qiang has received many awards and honors, including ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award (2021), NSF EPSCoR Research Fellow (2022) , Forbes 30 under 30 in Science (2022), ACS PMSE Early Career Investigator (2023), SAMPE Emerging Leadership Award and the Young Professional of the Year (2023), NSF CAREER Award (2023), and AIChE 35 under 35 (2023).