UMass Amherst Appoints CBE’s Wei Fan Provost Professor

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Wei Fan

The UMass Amherst Office of the Provost has named Professor Wei Fan of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) Department as one of four 2026 Provost Professors on campus. This esteemed, university-level, faculty honorific is awarded to tenure-system faculty members holding the rank of full professor who do not already occupy a named or distinguished professorship, recognizing their exceptional contributions to their field and deep commitments to student success and instruction.

The Riccio College of Engineering (CoE) takes great pleasure in thanking Professor Fan for all his achievements that led to this high-status appointment. See News Office announcement: https://www.umass.edu/news/article/2026-provost-professors-announced.

The News Office release explained that “The Provost Professor title is permanent, except if a new and permanent titled professorship is awarded (such as Distinguished Professor). Recipients also receive an awards package of $12,500…The 2026 Provost Professors will be honored at the Celebration of Faculty Excellence with additional recognition planned for the fall.”

As Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Fouad Abd-El-Khalick said in announcing the appointments, the four new recipients demonstrate “what it means to be a truly exceptional faculty member through their achievements in scholarly and academic excellence, commitment to student success, and dedication to their field. I encourage the campus community to congratulate them on their honor and thank them for their service to UMass Amherst.”

Just a few of Fan’s numerous accomplishments at UMass Amherst include 127 articles published in referred scientific journals, six patents and patent applications, 53 invited presentations, 26 competitively awarded research grants, 20 graduate students advised, nine postdoctoral scholars and visiting scholars advised, and 33 undergraduate students advised (with three receiving the university’s Rising Researcher Award).

Fan heads the Fan Porous Materials Research Group. As he explains, “The research of our group focuses on the rational synthesis of nanoporous materials for the catalysts of biorefinery and the adsorbents for chemical separations. By leveraging a comprehensive understanding of crystallization mechanisms, we precisely engineer their pore structure and size, surface properties, and active sites to meet pressing energy and environmental challenges.”

One of Fan’s recent research projects focuses on synthesizing a new class of catalysts for the catalytic conversion of sustainable biomass into chemicals and fuels. This is a class which, as he says, can be termed "hierarchical heterogeneous catalysts with tunable mesopore and micropore structure doped with noble and transition metals.” 

Another of Fan’s research thrusts focuses on the rational design of pore sizes, structural topologies, and surface functionalities in porous materials. This is achieved by custom-designing organic structure-directing agents (OSDAs) and gaining a fundamental understanding of their crystallization mechanisms. 

“Rational control of the porous structure of zeolites is the core challenge for many applications in sustainable-fuel production and energy storage,” as Fan explains. “Developing zeolites with tailored pore structures ranging from 0.5 nm to 2 nm could have a profound impact on producing clean fuels and removing toxic gases from engine emissions.”

Among Fan’s many honors, he won the prestigious UMass Amherst Distinguished Teaching Award for 2021-22. Additionally, he was an Integrated Concentration in STEM (iCons) Teaching Fellow at UMass Amherst in 2020, an Ed Price Faculty Fellow in 2019, and a 2016 Chutian Scholar Fellowship Visiting Professor in Hubei Province, China. Fan was also the winner of the 2016 CoE Barbara H. and Joseph I. Goldstein Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, the Outstanding CoE Teaching Award in 2014-2017, and a UMass Amherst 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award for 2014-2016.

Fan earned his B.S. at the University of Science and Technology of China and his Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo. (May 2026)