Biography
Dr. Heyang Yuan joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Temple University as an assistant professor in August 2019. Dr. Yuan received a BS degree at Tongji University in China, a MS degree at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, and a PhD in Environmental Engineering with Dr. Zhen (Jason) He at Virginia Tech. Prior to joining the Temple University, Dr. Yuan worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Yuan leads the BioNex Laboratory at Temple University. His research interests focus on integrating engineering, microbiology and electrochemistry to address the grand challenges at the nexus of water, energy and health.
Labs: The BioNex Laboratory
Research Interests
- Develop biotechnologies for simultaneous wastewater treatment, desalination, bioenergy production and resource recovery
- Understanding and modeling microbial communities and functional dynamics in engineered biological systems
- Fate and removal of emerging biological contaminants such as antibiotic resistance genes in bioreactors
- Material-microbe interactions
Courses Taught
Number | Name | Level |
|---|---|---|
CEE 2711 | Environmental Chemistry & Microbiology | Undergraduate |
CEE 3711 | Environmental Engineering | Undergraduate |
CEE 4531 | Life Cycle Assessment and Carbon Footprinting | Undergraduate |
CEE 5793 | Environmental Biotechnology | Graduate |
CEE 5794 | Advanced Biological Wastewater Treatment | Graduate |
Selected Publications
Recent
McKelvey, S., Cheng, Z., Eyring, A., Tuttle, R., Luciani, M., Hendricks, A., Jackson, J., & Yuan, H. (2025). Assessment of regulated and unregulated disinfection byproduct formation using chlorine dioxide pre-oxidation in pilot studies and data-driven modeling. J Hazard Mater, 497, 139729. Netherlands. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.139729.
Xia, W., Wu, Z., Hou, B., Cheng, Z., Bi, D., Chen, L., Chen, W., Yuan, H., Koole, L.H., & Qi, L. (2025). Inactivation of antibiotic resistant bacteria by nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots through spontaneous generation of intracellular and extracellular reactive oxygen species. Mater Today Bio, 30, 101428. England. doi: 10.1016/j.mtbio.2024.101428.
Xu, X., Cheng, Z., Liu, W., Lin, C., Xia, W., Shyu, H., Miao, W., & Yuan, H. (2025). Direct feature identification from Raman spectra and precise data-driven classification of phytopathogens at single conidium-species level. Comput Struct Biotechnol J, 27, 2403-2411. Netherlands. doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2025.05.044.
Xu, X., Cheng, Z., Liu, W., Lin, C., Miao, W., & Yuan, H. (2024). Direct Feature Identification from Raman Spectra and Precise Data-driven Classification of Phytopathogens at Single Conidium-Species Level. doi: 10.1101/2024.11.29.626083.
Moayedi, S., Xia, W., Lundergan, L., Yuan, H., & Xu, J. (2024). Zwitterionic Polymers for Biomedical Applications: Antimicrobial and Antifouling Strategies toward Implantable Medical Devices and Drug Delivery. Langmuir, 40(44), 23125-23145. United States. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c02664.
Cheng, Z., Qi, S., Yang, M., Efraim, R.B., Yuan, H., Zhang, W., Bernstein, R., & Ronen, A. (2024). Advanced Tertiary Wastewater Treatment for Enhanced Effluent Quality by Electrically Conducting Membranes Operated at Altered Potential for Simultaneous Mitigation of Scaling and Biofouling. ACS ES&T Engineering, 4(8), 1902-1913. American Chemical Society (ACS). doi: 10.1021/acsestengg.4c00126.
Cheng, Z., Ronen, A., & Yuan, H. (2024). Hybrid Modeling of Engineered Biological Systems through Coupling Data-Driven Calibration of Kinetic Parameters with Mechanistic Prediction of System Performance. ACS ES&T Water, 4(3), 958-968. American Chemical Society (ACS). doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.3c00131.
Yao, S., Swanson, C.S., Cheng, Z., He, Q., & Yuan, H. (2024). Alternating polarity as a novel strategy for building synthetic microbial communities capable of robust Electro-Methanogenesis. Bioresour Technol, 395, 130374. England. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2024.130374.
Kekre, K.M., Tiburcio, D., Ronen, A., Suri, R., Andaluri, G., & Yuan, H. (2022). Electrically charged forward osmosis: Promoting reverse salt flux to enhance water recovery and struvite precipitation. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 186, 106522-106522. Elsevier BV. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2022.106522.
Cheng, Z., Yao, S., & Yuan, H. (2021). Linking Population Dynamics to Microbial Kinetics for Hybrid Modeling of Engineered Bioprocesses. doi: 10.1101/2021.04.15.440059.
Yuan, H., Wang, X., Lin, T., Kim, J., & Liu, W. (2021). Disentangling Syntrophic Electron Transfer Mechanisms in Methanogenesis Through Electrochemical Stimulation, Omics, and Machine Learning. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-288821/v1.