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Liang Feng named to the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 list

Postdoctoral Fellow Liang Feng was named to Forbes Magazines prestigious 30 Under 30 list for 2022. The annual list (North America), released on December 1 each year, recognizes 600 of the brightest young entrepreneurs, leaders, and stars under 20 categories including Art & Style, Energy, Science, Sports, etc.

Reporters, editors, and expert judges of Forbes 30 Under 30 consider a variety of factors, including funding, revenue, social impact, inventiveness, and potential. Nominee shortlists are shared with each category’s four-judge panel who select the final 30 listees in their assigned category. Liang was selected from tens of thousands of nominations—his achievements, recognized by Forbes editors and expert industry judges, now place him in the world’s most impactful community of young entrepreneurs and game-changers, according to Randall Lane, the Forbes Chief Content Officer and Founder of Forbes 30 Under 30. Liang (26) is one of the youngest honorees under the Science category. In the Stoddart Group, he discovered a new mode of adsorption named mechanisorption. His research, which includes over 50 peer-reviewed publications, could help the development of “life-like” materials for applications ranging from chemical separation to computing to energy storage.

Forbes, an American business magazine, features articles on finance, industry, investing, marketing, technology, communications, science, politics, and law. See Sir Fraser Stoddart sharing his vision on America’s future in science, published on Forbes in 2017. The magazine is well known for its lists and rankings, including of the richest Americans (the Forbes 400), of America’s Wealthiest Celebrities, of the world’s top companies (the Forbes Global 2000), Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People, and The World’s Billionaires. Forbes published the first edition of the 30 Under 30 a decade ago, with one clear goal: to identify the new guard, the young innovators, trailblazers, and disruptors remaking our world. That first list featured names like Kevin Systrom, soon to sell Instagram to Facebook for $1 billion; Lena Dunham, who had yet to debut on HBO’s Girls; Daniel Ek, who had just launched Spotify in the U.S.; journalist Ronan Farrow, years before he exposed Harvey Weinstein in the New Yorker; and actor Donald Glover, then mostly known as a cast member in the cult comedy Community. The 2022 Forbes Under 30 list will follow in their footsteps, defining the decade to come. Liang’s inauguration into this amazing Forbes Under 30 Lister community will be celebrated virtually on December 13 at 7 p.m. ET | 4 p.m. PT. Liang will also be invited to join the private Forbes Under 30 Lister Forum, where the honoree can connect with global U30 Listers from all years. Randall says, “As your predecessors will attest, bringing together Forbes Under 30 Listers, from all the different lists and years, along with legendary mentors, is a life-changing experience.”

The list is now live online, and will also be featured in Forbes magazine on newsstands, with cover-to-cover Under 30 coverage, later this month. See the full entry on Liang’s accolade over at Forbes.com.

Learn more about Liang’s recent research in the current issue of Science on mechanisorption: Feng, L.; Qiu, Y.; Guo, Q.-H.; Chen, Z.; Seale, J. S. W.; He, K.; Wu, H.; Feng, Y.; Farha, O. K.; Astumian, R. D.; Stoddart, J. F., Active Mechanisorption Driven by Pumping Cassettes, Science 2021, 374, 1215–1221.

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Pictured below — Postdoctoral Fellow Liang Feng alongside the Forbes 30 Under 30 announcement: