BIOGRAPHY

Chenyuan obtained her B.S. in physics from Peking University in 2018, followed by her Ph.D. in physics from Harvard in 2024. Over the years, her research has been devoted to the study of strongly correlated systems. Initially motivated by the phenomenology of cuprates, she investigated variants of Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models, which describe quantum matter without quasiparticle excitations and provide a tractable example of strong coupling behavior. More specifically, her work includes studying a deconfined quantum critical point in doped random exchange magnets, the metal-insulator transition in a half-filled Hubbard model, and unconventional superconductivity emerging from strange metals. These theories capture universal aspects of quantum materials and are applicable to a wide range of strongly correlated systems.

At Rice, Chenyuan will continue her research in the field of correlated quantum materials under the guidance of Prof. Qimiao Si at the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Beyond cuprates, she will explore other novel quantum materials, including heavy fermion systems and moire superlattices. Through this work, she aims to bridge different domains of quantum physics through the lens of Kondo physics and achieve a unified understanding across these emergent phenomena.

In her spare time, Chenyuan enjoys reading novels and watching vintage martial arts movies from the 1970s.