Dr. Yiming (Ryan) Bu completed his PhD in 2024 at the Institute of Frontier Materials (IFM), Deakin University, Australia, where he worked on a multidisciplinary project spanning chemistry, physics, materials science, and textile engineering. With over eight years of research experience during his master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral studies, he has developed into a proficient researcher skilled in experimental execution, problem-solving, and research report writing. 
His expertise in functional materials and surface chemistry led him to join an environmental and civil engineering research group at North Dakota State University, USA, in 2019 as a research assistant. There, he worked on a superhydrophobic coating project that combined chemical modification with nanofabrication for oily wastewater separation. Before pursuing his PhD at Deakin University, Dr. Bu was a research assistant at Soochow University, China, where he focused on industry projects involving the design and manufacture of interfacial solar-driven devices for wastewater purification and seawater desalination. He played a key role in establishing these research projects. During his PhD, he expanded his knowledge from surface chemistry to photo-thermal physics and the solar-energy-water nexus, as evidenced by his publications, including two front cover papers in Journal of Materials Chemistry A on photothermal conversion for clean water harvesting.
Driven by his interest in interfacial solar-driven steam generation technologies for clean water harvesting, Dr. Bu joined the Future Industries Institute at UniSA as a postdoctoral researcher, further expanding his research into photothermal materials, devices development and photocatalysis.
Dr. Bu has extensive research experience in solar-thermal energy conversion and applications, photothermal materials, and photocatalysis. He is also proficient in using a wide range of specialist equipment, including ICP, XPS, FTIR, XRD, SEM, TEM, UV-vis spectroscopy, ovens, freeze dryers, centrifuges, filtration systems, FT-IR spectroscopy, optical microscopy, mechanical strength testing, DSC/TGA, and surface-angle testing.