Bethesda's You Zhou Wins Outstanding Young Scientist Award From Maryland Science Center

BETHESDA, MD — You Zhou, Ph.D., a Bethesda resident, won the 2023 Outstanding Young Scientist award, an annual honor given by the Maryland Science Center to celebrate scientific research and academic achievement.

Zhou, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Maryland, leads an interdisciplinary research group focused on investigating the quantum behaviors of electrons and ions in solids to design materials with enhanced functionalities.

Through the group’s research, Zhou has made several groundbreaking discoveries, such as the observation of electron crystallization in two-dimensional materials, the development of single-atom-thick mirrors, and the creation of high-performance fuel cells and neuromorphic computing devices.

The Outstanding Young Scientist award program was established in 1959 to recognize and celebrate extraordinary contributions of young Maryland scientists. Nominees must be Maryland residents 35 years of age and under.

Award recipients are chosen by members of the Maryland Academy of Sciences’ Scientific Advisory Council.

Zhou, who was born in 1988, joined the University of Maryland faculty in 2021 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, where he received his doctoral degree in applied physics in 2015. Since then, Zhou has also been the recipient of a National Science Foundation Career Award and was named a Forbes “30 Under 30” in Science in 2018.

Zhou was honored at a ceremony on May 18 at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Other winners included Jeffery Boye of Johns Hopkins University, who was named Outstanding Young Engineer; Kristine Zwerlein-Rose of Baltimore City Public Schools, who was named Outstanding STEM Educator; and Jazmine Barnes, a senior at Bard High School Early College in Baltimore, who received the Dr. H. Bentley Glass Scholarship.

"This year’s award honorees exemplify the values we celebrate every day at the Maryland Science Center — curiosity, inquiry and discovery," Mark J. Potter, president and CEO of the Maryland Science Center, said in a statement. "Their commitment to the process of exploration serves as a role model for other young professionals, educators and students seeking to understand and better our world."

The 2022 winner of the Outstanding Young Scientist award was Troy Townsend, an associate professor of chemistry and materials science at Saint Mary’s College of Maryland.

The May 18 awards ceremony at the Maryland Science Center was sponsored by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Transamerica, Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, UMBC, University of Maryland and W. R. Grace.