Hao Yan studied chemistry and earned his Bachelor’s degree at Shandong University, China. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry under Professor N. C. Seeman, New York University in 2001, working on design and construction of sequence dependent DNA nanomechanical devices. He then moved to the Computer Science Department at Duke University, where he continued to explore his interests in DNA based molecular computing and programming. Following a three year period as an Assistant Research Professor at Duke University, he joined Arizona State University as Assistant Professor in Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2004. In 2008, he was promoted with early tenure directly to Full Professor and he is currently the Milton D. Glick Distinguished Professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of the Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics in the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. The theme of his research is to use nature’s design rules as inspiration to advance biomedical, energy-related, and other technological innovations through the use of self-assembling molecules and materials. He aims to create intelligent materials with better component controls at the molecular level. He is leading an interdisciplinary team to design bio-inspired molecular building blocks and program their higher order assembly into systems that will perform complex functions. Dr. Yan has published more than 240 papers, including more than 45 papers published in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell and their sister Journals.  He has received honors including the Foresight Institute Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the Rozenberg Tulip Award in DNA Computing, Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NSF Career Award, AFOSR Young Investigator Award. He has served as president of the International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation and Engineering. He is an Elected Member of the European Academy of Sciences, Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS). He currently serves as Associate Editor for Science Advances and ACS Applied Bio Materials.