"The beauty of engineering is the way it teaches you to think." -Kyra Yap
Armed with her SoE chemical engineering degree, Australian native Kyra Yap continued her education at Stanford University, where she received her MS in 2023 and PhD in 2025. Currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, she is characterizing ion transport in solid state electrolytes for battery applications. She will be joining the MIT chemical engineering faculty in 2027 as an assistant professor. Forbes recently recognized her as 30 Under 30 in science for her work towards making chemical projects — responsible for nearly 40% of all industrial energy use and emissions — more efficient and sustainable by transforming waste byproducts into usable resources.
What drew you to Rutgers from Australia?
I decided to come to Rutgers because it had the balance between academics and athletics (I was part of the Rutgers tennis team) that I wanted. I as also drawn to the big public school setting.
Why chemical engineering?
I chose it after a 15-minute conversation with Fuat Celik, an associate professor of chemical engineering, at the end of my freshman year. I originally intended to be a chemistry major, but he opened my eyes to the beauty of looking at the entire process with chemical engineering, and to the wide range of career opportunities a degree in chemical engineering would offer me. I switched my major after this conversation.
What do you most value about your Rutgers Engineering education?
The most important thing I learned was how to take fundamental steps and put them together to form an entire process. Engineering, to me, is about bringing together and applying tools from different disciplines to solve problems from start to finish.
Were you involved in any extracurriculars?
In addition to being on the Rutgers tennis team, I was an undergraduate research assistant in CAS chemistry professor Charles Dismukes' lab. I started there through the Aresty Summer Science Program in 2017 and continued until I graduated. I also was a tutor for Rutgers Athletics; a learning assistant for the chemical engineering department; and a member of the Rutgers Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
How does your doctoral and post-doc research contribute to turning chemical products' waste into valuable resources?
My PhD research heavily emphasized thermodynamics and kinetics, but the fundamental toolbox of a chemical engineer includes thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport. These three pillars are imperative in understanding how to design effective reactors. Hence, I chose my postdoc work in understanding the role of ion transport in electrolytes in chemical reactors, with a goal of combining this with my PhD work.
You will be starting your own lab at MIT. What will its focus be?
At MIT, my lab will be focused on designing electrochemical reactors that leverage thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport to sustainably circularize resource economies. Its goal is to design electrochemical interfaces able to drive chemical conversions such as oxidation reactions, and to selectively extract valuable metals from waste streams.
What do you most look forward to about your MIT appointment?
I'm excited to pursue research questions that have the potential to impact the communities close to my heart — and to do it with some of the best students in the world. I chose to pursue a career in academia to be able to work with the next generation of scientific leaders, and I'm incredibly excited to be able to do this at MIT.
What advice do you have for incoming SoE and chemical engineering students?
Listen to the advice of those around you. A lot of the decisions that I have made that led to my current position were made because of the advice of people around me. If it weren't for Professor Celik, I may have never become a chemical engineer. And it if weren't for the advice of a few people around me during graduate school, I may never have decided to apply for faculty positions.
For engineering, and chemical engineering specifically, the beauty of engineering is in the way it teaches you to think. You learn to look at the fundamentals of a specific problem and then contextualize them into a broader application. It is a valuable skill that will take you far in life and in any career you might pursue.
