Assistant Professor of mechanical engineering, Dr. Xiaoxiao Zhao, is the recipient of the 2026 SAMPE North America Young Professional Emerging Leadership Award. The award recognizes Dr. Zhao’s emerging leadership in materials and process engineering, particularly in sustainable surface engineering, multifunctional coatings, and scalable materials processing.
Since joining UMaine in 2024, Dr. Zhao has established an active research program focused on fluorine-free omniphobic and superhydrophobic materials, liquid-like polymer brush coatings, nanostructured silica-based coatings, and plasma-enabled processing technologies. His work emphasizes not only fundamental structure–property relationships at surfaces and interfaces, but also manufacturable coating strategies with applications in aerospace, protective materials, environmental, and advanced manufacturing.
His research group is developing durable, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-free surface treatments for applications such as icephobic aerospace materials, chemical protective textiles, fluid-handling systems, and PFAS remediation. These projects integrate materials design, surface modification, reactor development, and characterization, while providing graduate and undergraduate students with hands-on training in fabrication, testing, and process optimization.
In the words of Department Chair Rais-Rohani “Dr. Zhao’s innovative research on PFAS remediation and PFAS-free surface treatments advances global efforts in combating environmental pollution.” The 2026 SAMPE award reflects both Dr. Zhao’s technical contributions and his commitment to advancing sustainable, scalable, and application-driven materials technologies.
