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The American Chemical Society announced Luis M. Liz-Marzán, a leader in the colloidal synthesis of metal nanoparticles, as the recipient of the first Dong Qin ACS Award in Nanochemistry. The award aims to “recognize creative and impactful research by an investigator in the area of nanochemistry.” The award consists of $5,000 and a certificate, as well as reimbursed travel expenses to ACS Spring 2026, where the award will be presented. 

Liz-Marzán joined the Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials (CIC biomaGUNE) as an Ikerbasque Research Professor and scientific director. He is now a principal investigator of the CIC biomaGUNE node of the Biomedical Research Networking Center in Bioengineering, Biomaterials, and Nanomedicine. As of 2022, he also holds a part-time chair position at the University of Vigo.

Remembering a leader in nanochemistry

Qin’s friends, colleagues, and peers believed the establishment of this award would have brought a smile to her face. “She would like that the award provides an opportunity to celebrate science and bring people together,” says Sara Skrabalak, the James H. Rudy Professor at Indiana University Bloomington.

Others say the award embodies some of Qin’s admirable qualities: “A smart and energetic scientist who was always striving for innovative ideas and would not quit. A lively and engaging person who was always kind and helpful to others. A person who loved and was enthusiastic about living, in all aspects of life,” says Hai-Lung Dai, the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Chemistry at Temple University. 

John Rogers, the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University, echoes the sentiment. He met Qin as a postdoctoral scholar in George Whitesides’s group at Harvard University in the 1990s. “Dong was simply wonderful. A supersmart, talented researcher—in that sense not unlike several other highly accomplished postdocs in the Whitesides group in those days—but she was much more than that at a personal level due to her unique individual style. Specifically, she was one of the most optimistic, energetic, enthusiastic people that I have ever known.”

Rogers recalls their optics experiments at the time required using a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they had only early-morning access to complete their work. One of Rogers’s favorite memories is their 5:00 a.m. meetings at that lab to complete their research. “Younan Xia [Qin’s husband] would accompany Dong during these early-morning trips from Harvard to MIT to make sure that she arrived safely. I just remember the incredible contrast: Dong arriving in her usual, loud, boisterous, energetic, joyful way, accompanied by Younan [with a quiet, reserved demeanor]. . . . For me, this is not only a great, lasting memory of Dong but also of Younan’s deep dedication to her.” 

Qin was a materials science and engineering professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she had established a group to work on the colloidal synthesis of noble-metal nanocrystals. The goal of this work was to illuminate the process of forming these structures to optimize the production of novel materials with specific properties for a variety of applications. Her work has contributed to the advancement in understanding of the nucleation and growth of bimetallic nanocrystals and methods to create nanomaterials with desired characteristics. Peidong Yang, a professor of chemistry and materials science at the University of California, Berkeley, calls Qin’s work developing in situ techniques pioneering: “Metal nanocrystal growth in solution has been largely based on an empirical approach, and for many decades, it has been an art rather than a science because of the difficulty in gaining atomic-level nucleation and growth information in situ,” he says. “Dr. Qin’s work has turned this art of nanocrystal growth into quantitative science.” 

Before arriving at Georgia Tech, Qin was associate dean of research in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis and associate director of the Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Washington.  

Qin was a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and served as an associate editor of Nanoscale and Nanoscale Advances and as an advisory board member of Nanoscale Horizons, the Journal of Materials Chemistry C, and ChemNanoMat. She was also recognized for her exceptional teaching, having received multiple awards from Georgia Tech.  

She was a researcher, mentor, teacher, and friend to many in her community. She was also remembered for her pursuits in cooking. Dai recalls sitting with Qin at an ACS meeting, listening to her describe all the new dishes she had been creating and being surprised that “she had become a gourmet chef.”

Qin enjoyed cooking for her friends and typically hosted barbecues. Knowing that some of her friends were vegetarians, she went out of her way to serve them a special meal at her gatherings. “She made the most delicious tofu-mushroom stir-fry. The tofu was the best,” Skrabalak recalls. “I shared with her how much I enjoyed the dish and my wish to be able to prepare such good tofu. Dong began pulling cooking supplies out of her pantry, showed me how to cook it properly in the middle of the party, and sent me home with all the ingredients to reproduce the dish.” Skrabalak still has a copy of the tofu recipe Qin gave her after hosting the Xia group at her home one evening.

Qin is survived by a spouse, Younan Xia; mother, Qike Zheng; and sister, Fawn Wang. She was preceded in death by her father, Qizong Qin.