Hang Ren

Hang Ren is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Sun Yat-Sen University in 2011 and his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Michigan in 2016 under Mark Meyerhoff, followed by postdoctoral training with Henry White at the University of Utah.

The Ren group develops quantitative electrochemical methods, theory, and scanning-probe instrumentation to understand and control heterogeneous processes at electrochemical interfaces. Current research spans nanoelectrocatalysis, interfacial dynamics, electrochemical nucleation and phase transformations, high-throughput electrosynthesis, and autonomous electrochemical measurement, with extensions to single-cell analysis.

Ren's honors include the Sloan Research Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA), DARPA Young Faculty Award and Director's Award, and the Royce W. Murray Young Investigator Award.

The Ren group develops quantitative experimental and theoretical approaches to understand how electrochemical reactions evolve across space and time. A central goal is to connect nanoscale interfacial structure and dynamics with reaction kinetics, selectivity, nucleation, and phase transformations—information that is often obscured in ensemble electrochemical measurements.

The group combines scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM), nanopipette-based methods, correlative microscopy, quantitative mass-transport and kinetic modeling, and automated measurement workflows. These tools enable measurements of intrinsic electrochemical kinetics at individual sites and systematic studies of heterogeneous and dynamic interfaces.

Major research directions include:

• Nanoelectrocatalysis and interfacial dynamics: determining how local structure, interfacial water, ions, adsorbates, and time-dependent reaction environments govern catalytic activity and selectivity.
• Electrochemical nucleation and phase transformations: quantifying stochastic, site-specific nucleation, growth, dissolution, and interfacial breakdown processes from individual events to material-scale behavior.
• Scanning-probe and autonomous electrochemistry: developing quantitative SECCM, nanopipette instrumentation, correlative measurements, transport models, and automated workflows for extracting electrochemical kinetics and mapping structure–activity relationships.
• High-throughput electrosynthesis: using localized electrochemistry and combinatorial measurements to discover synthesis conditions and precisely control nanoscale materials and interfaces.

The group also applies nanoscale electroanalytical and delivery methods to biological systems, including spatially resolved measurements and manipulation of single cells.