Song Lin

2026 National Award Finalist — Faculty

Song Lin

Current Position:
Professor, Department of Chemistry

Institution:
Stanford University

Discipline:
Organic Chemistry

Recognized for: Advancing organic electrosynthesis by using electricity to invent cleaner reactions, accelerate drug discovery, build accessible reactors, and create recyclable polymers for sustainable chemistry and manufacturing. 

Areas of Research Interest and Expertise:
Organic Chemistry, Electrosynthesis, Medicine, Sustainability 

Previous Positions:

Tisch University Professor, Cornell University
Stanford Science Visiting Professor, Stanford University
Associate Professor, Cornell University
Assistant Professor, Cornell University
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, USA (Advisor: Chris Chang)
Ph.D., Harvard University, USA (Advisor: Eric Jacobsen)

Research Summary:

Organic synthesis is essential to creating medicines, materials, and other molecules that benefit society, but many chemical reactions rely on harsh conditions or generate waste. Song Lin, PhD, develops new electrochemical methods that allow chemists to build molecules with greater precision, efficiency, and sustainability. His work has expanded what chemists can build through electrosynthesis, including complex molecules relevant to drug discovery and recyclable polymers. Lin has also created accessible tools that make electrochemistry easier for other scientists to adopt. By turning electricity into a practical tool for molecular construction, Lin’s research is advancing cleaner and more powerful approaches to modern chemistry.

“The twin objectives of my career are to develop chemical tools to accelerate the creation of useful molecules and to uncover principles that will become textbook knowledge. I am grateful to all my coworkers who inspire me to achieve these goals.”

Key Publications:

  1. B. W. Gorski, J. Rein, S. Norris, Y. Ji, P. L. McEuen, S. Lin. Light-harvesting Microelectronic Devices for Wireless Electrosynthesis. Nature, 2025. 
  2. J. Rein, S. B. Zacate, S. D. Rozema, R. A. Annor, S. J. Miller, S. Lin. Generality-Oriented Optimization of Enantioselective Aminoxyl Radical Catalysis. Science, 2023. 
  3. W. Zhang, L. Lu, W. Zhang, Y. Wang, S. Ware, J. Mondragon, J. Rein, N. A. Strotman, D. Lehnherr, K. A. See, S. Lin. Electrochemically Driven Cross-Electrophile Coupling of Alkyl Halides. Nature, 2022. 
  4. Zhipeng Lu, Minsoo Ju, Yi Wang, Jonathan M. Meinhardt, Jesus I. Martinez Alvarado, Elisia Villemure, Jack A. Terrett, S. Lin. Regioselective aliphatic C–H functionalization using frustrated radical pairs. Nature, 2023. 

Other Honors:

2026 Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry
2025 Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists Finalist
2025 Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award
2024 Cope Scholar Award, American Chemical Society
2022 Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award, Cornell University
2022 EPA Green Chemistry Challenge Award
2022 Bristol Myers Squibb Unrestricted Grant in Synthetic Organic Chemistry
2022 National Fresenius Award, Phi Lambda Upsilon Honorary Chemical Society
2019 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship
2019 MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35

In the Media:

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