Dr. Yu was trained as a physical chemist and kineticist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. She did her postdoctoral research at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Colorado State University. She has been a senior scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory since 2006. She has led the development of a novel mesoscale imaging tool based on microfluidics at PNNL since 2008, which has resulted in three patents, a prestigious R&D 100 award, and a Federal Laboratory Consortium Technology Transfer Excellence Award. Her inventions enabled in situ liquid analysis using surface sensitive tools like SEM and ToF-SIMS that are traditionally limited to solid analysis. She has developed new concepts in aerosol sampling, led and participated in many field studies for in situ measurements of aerosols. Dr. Yu is the chair of the DOE chemical exposure working group; and leads the development of protective action criteria (PAC) and chemical mixture methodology (CMM) for consequence assessment of toxic health effects. Her research focuses on in situ mesoscale chemical imaging of soft materials in atmospheric, biology, energy, and material sciences using microfluidics.
