Lei Zhai

Associate professor Lei Zhai gained international attention three years ago when he developed “frozen smoke,” a new material made out of nanoparticles and which belongs to the family of the lightest solids in the world. A spongy substance that could be mistaken for packing material has the nanotechnology world buzzing. University of Central Florida Associate Professor Lei Zhai and postdoctoral associate Jianhua Zou have engineered the world's lightest carbon material in such a way that it could be used to detect pollutants and toxic substances, improve robotic surgery techniques and store energy more efficiently.

Zhai joined UCF in 2005 after he completed his post-doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has a master’s degree in Chemistry from East Tennessee State University and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University. Zhai has written dozens of peer- reviewed articles, has obtained six patents and is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences. He is the recipient of National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

Dr. Zhai is president of American Chemical Society Orlando Section. He focuses a lot on reaching out to children in K-12 because they are the future.