Ting Xu
Professor of Chemistry and of Materials Science and Engineering
KAVLI ENERGY NANOSCIENCE INSTITUTE, UC BERKELEY
Hometown:
Dalian, China
Favorite Scientific Discovery:
Evolution
Favorite Movie:
Men in Black. I love how in the final scene the view zooms out from the street to the galaxy and our universe becomes a marble in an alien’s game.
Hobbies:
I love anything associated with the ocean, diving, snorkeling, surfing, fishing or just idling…
Six-Word Memoir:
Raising my son is my science.
How did you first become interested in science? Who or what inspired you?
I grew up on a university campus in China. My childhood playground was my mom’s chemistry lab. My dad introduced many things when I was young including a manual calculator that looks just like a ruler. Although I never told him, in all honesty, he is really the first one who brought me into science.
What is the question that most drives your work right now?
I am interested in entropy and specifically, how nature processes information stored in DNA at the system level and how to balance the precision with randomness. I am incorporating what I learn into material development, hoping to synchronize different processes so we can live in harmony with our planet.