Featured Customer: Wei Gao, Ph.D.

As a family business, Wyatt Technology cherishes each and every customer like a family member. Wei Gao from The Dow Chemical Company has been such a family member for more than 15 years. Her very first LSU experience dates back to 1998 when she was a postdoc with Professor Richard Gross at Polytechnic University in New York (now NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering). Wei was thrilled with the characterization capabilities Wyatt instruments provided, and upon returning to the lab, she turned these instruments into workhorses for the group and published a number of papers using data from Wyatt detectors. Because of her outstanding work, more Wyatt instruments were added to her group and she came to Santa Barbara three additional times for extended LSU training as well as the International Light Scattering Colloquia.

In 2006 Wei decided to make the transition from academia to industry as a Lead Chemist at Rohm and Hass Company (now The Dow Chemical Company). Wyatt instruments once again became critical tools for her characterization work. She combined Wyatt detectors with both Eclipse^™ field-flow fractionation and SEC separations to help make improved polymer and nanoparticle products. She was recognized for her outstanding work with the Rohm and Hass NOVA Innovation Award and the Dow Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award.

Wei’s success is not surprising to people who have come to know her. As a scientist, she is thorough and perseverant. Her strong desire to learn and apply state-of-the-art technology enables her to stay innovative and to achieve the highest data quality from the instruments. A few years ago, she requested a new feature in ASTRA^® software. She and our software engineer talked weekly over the course of several months to have this feature implemented the way users want.

Besides being a consummate scientist, Wei is also a busy mother of two. Wei appreciates the network feature we implemented 10 years ago in our instruments to help her balance between her work and family life. She uses this feature to start a sequence and to collect data, and analyzes the data at home after picking up her kids from school. Wei proudly showed us some recent artwork by her children who won the 1st place in their county’s computer fair. Wei, as your extended family, we too are very proud of your children and of you!