Professor Zijie Yan was identified as the faculty victim in a deadly shooting that sent the UNC-Chapel Hill campus into lockdown on Monday. He was the academic adviser of suspect Tailei Qi, according to a university web page.
Yan was an associate professor in the department of applied physical sciences, where he focused on nanoscience technology. Qi, a second-year doctoral student who was taken into custody after Monday’s shooting, worked closely with Yan’s research group at UNC since early 2022. Police said the incident happened in a lab on campus.
Yan and Qi co-authored research papers in recent years on the effect of light on nanoparticles. Yan’s recent work focused on something called “optical tweezers,” a process using light aimed at developing advanced nanorobots within cells, according to an article on the applied physical sciences department’s website.
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