Yanna Liang, Ph.D.

Dr. Yanna Liang joined the University at Albany as Professor and Chair in the newly minted Department of Environmental and Sustainable Engineering in Summer 2017. Before Dr. Liang started her academic career in 2007 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC), she worked for the Environmental Protection Agency in China and the United States for more than eight years. She has secured more than $5 million external research funding from Federal and state agencies, industry and foundation and participated in over $4.63 million projects funded by NSF. She has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal papers and invited book chapters and presented her research through more than 81 conference presentations. As a result of her multidisciplinary work, Dr. Liang has been a regular panelist for NSF, DOE, DoED, NIH, EPA, DOD, USDA and a frequent reviewer for more than 40 scientific journals. Additionally, she is a registered professional engineer, a board certified environmental engineer, an ABET Program Evaluator, an ASCE ExCEED Teaching Fellow, and has won various awards from ASCE, AWRA, and AWMA. 

Her research interests are tied strongly to sustainable environment and energy. Besides working on conventional environmental research topics, such as remediation of organic and inorganic contaminants, water and wastewater treatment, she is passionate about research and development on renewable energy. In addition, to be proactive on protecting our environment, she is interested in understanding the fate and transport of emerging contaminants in different environmental matrices. Specifically, her research interests are:  

Biodegradation and phytoremediation of organic contaminants in subsurface and groundwater
Nanomaterials for environmental clean-up
Microbial ecology in engineered and natural systems
Fate and transport of engineered nanoparticles and emerging contaminants in aquatic and soil environments
Microbial electrochemical cells for CO2 reduction 
Biochemical and thermochemical conversion of renewable feedstocks to biofuels and bio-products 
Water reuse and wastewater treatment