Biography
Yueh-Lin Loo, or her preferred name Lynn, was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia until she moved to Taipei, Taiwan to study at Taipei American School (Yueh-Lin Loo). After completing high school and middle school in Taiwan she then attended University of Pennsylvania where she obtained her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering in 1996 (Yueh-Lin Loo). She then went on to graduate school at Princeton University where she earned her PhD and MA in Chemical Engineering in 2001 (Yueh-Lin Loo). Post-graduation she spent a year as a Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, and then moved on to an independent research program in the Chemical Engineering department at University of Texas at Austin: she was also an associate professor for a period (Yueh-Lin Loo Ph.D.: Executive Profile & Biography.). Then in 2007 Lynn went on to become an associate professor and undergraduate representative in the Chemical and Biological department at Princeton University (Yueh-Lin Loo).
Yueh-Lin Loo © Princeton
As a professor at Princeton she has been involved in many research projects such as functional block copolymers, organic conductors and semiconductors for thin-film electronics, patterning schemes for plastic electronics, and assembly of conjugated molecules on metals and semiconductors and seeing how the molecular orientation and structure can affect its electrical properties (Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators). The size and shape research involves utilizing polymerization techniques to change the chemical functionalities by developing nanostructures that respond to environmental stimulus of model block copolymers (Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators). Her research project on thin-film electronics is replacing metals and organic semiconductors with solution-processable counterparts which would reduce initial and operational costs related to thin film fabrication (Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators). Then the project on lithography is focused on patterning technology to create organic thin-film devices, and is her most notable research though has been the invention of nanotransfer printing, which involves patterning technology that is able to create functional organic thin-film devices (Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators). Then her final current project is on the assembly and orientation of conjugated molecules on metal and semiconductor surfaces to affect its macroscopic electrical properties (Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators).
It was difficult finding much information on Lynn’s childhood and lineage, but gleaning from her video talking about her research some information can be gleaned about what drives her. In her video she talked about how her research in creating organic solar cells and circuits can be so beneficial to society by improving healthcare, energy consumption, and everyday life (Video: ‘Plastic Electronics’). The uses that she focused on related to her research were about improving the use and versatility of renewable energies, enhancing the quality of life through energy conservation and detection of contaminants in water, and uses in healthcare through reduction of exposure to heavy metals (Video: ‘Plastic Electronics’). This want for societal improvement could be driven by her upbringing in Malaysia which is a melting pot of ethnicities and their government wanting to bring together every ethnicity and gender to create an inclusive country.
