Yet-Ming Chiang's research aims to design, synthesize, and characterize advanced materials and devices for use in clean energy technologies including low-carbon transportation and grid-scale electrical energy storage. In addition, his group studies electrochemical processes for the decarbonization of industrial materials, and the mining, separation, and recovery of elements from various feedstocks. Current projects focus on novel conduction mechanisms in solid electrolytes, metal electrode based solid-state batteries, batteries for electric aviation, low-cost highly scalable grid storage batteries, decarbonization of cement production, and electrochemical mining of ashes and other wastes.

In addition to his academic research, Yet-Ming has co-founded several companies based on research from his MIT laboratory including the energy companies American Superconductor Corporation (1987), A123 Systems (2001), and 24M Technologies (2010).

Yet-Ming has served on numerous government and private advisory committees and study panels, including the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Advisory Committee (ERAC) and Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC), the Basic Energy Sciences’ Materials Science Division’s Materials Council, Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment, and the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES) at SLAC.