Lilia Xie joins the Department of Chemistry and the Princeton Materials Institute

Materials chemist Lilia Xie, a 2014 undergraduate alumna, is joining the Princeton faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Princeton Materials Institute (PMI), effective January 1, 2025.

Xie’s research focuses on creating new materials from molecular building blocks, especially for use in advanced electronics. By incorporating molecular components in between thin layers of inorganic solid materials, she can precisely change the materials’ characteristics, giving scientists the ability to tune a specific property like electrical conductivity.

The ability to precisely tailor the electronic, magnetic and optical properties of new materials is essential for them to be useful in transformative technologies, according to Xie, such as next-generation memory devices and quantum computers.

Xie said that because her work involves so much microscopy and other characterization, one great advantage of her PMI appointment is working closely with experts in the Imaging and Analysis Center. “It’s really nice to have access to all the instrumentation in one place and to be able to talk to the scientists who really understand the techniques,” she said.

As an undergraduate student in chemistry, Xie completed her thesis under the guidance of Robert Cava, the Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry. During that time, she worked closely with one of Cava’s graduate students, Leslie Schoop, who is now a professor of chemistry and director of the Princeton Center for Complex Materials.

“I’m psyched to have recruited one of the most talented chemists I have worked with,” said Schoop. “She just always easily understood all kinds of scientific input… She’ll say, ‘Okay, I know what needs to be done and I can find the answer.’ ”

Xie said Schoop and Cava were both very influential on her career, so returning to Princeton to work alongside them as colleagues was especially exciting. She’ll also be teaching a course that she took as an undergraduate about a decade ago. “That’s a real full circle moment,” she said.

Xie is the first student to have minored in materials science and engineering (then a certificate program) and return as a faculty member. She looks forward to providing the kind of mentorship she received while at Princeton. “I’m excited to see the students become independent scientists and come into their own.”

Xie is currently an Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California-Berkeley in the lab of Kwabena Bediako and a L’Oreal USA for Women in Science Fellow.

She completed her doctorate in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.