Home > About Unimicro > Chairman & President

Chao Yan, Ph.D. Unimicro Technologies, Inc. 440 Boulder Court 100-C , 105, Pleasanton , CA 94566 Tel. (925) 846-8638, Fax: (925) 401-9548

Dr. Chao Yan is Chairman & President of Unimicro Technologies, Inc. in the USA and a Professor at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science. In 1985, he was sponsored by the Chinese government to come to Georgetown University in Washington , DC , USA and started his doctoral studies in Dr. Daniel Martire's group in the Chemistry Department. His research was focused on the development of a molecular theory of chromatography and its applications in gas, liquid, and supercritical fluid chromatography. It also involved theoretical and experimental research in thermodynamics, statistical thermodynamics, and liquid crystal. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1990.

Dr. Yan moved to Europe in 1991 and became a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Fritz Erni's Department of Analytical R&D at Sandoz Pharma Ltd, Switzerland . His research interests included the development of electrokinetic separation techniques and their applications in pharmaceutical analysis using capillary electrochromatography (CEC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), micellar electrokenitic chromatography (MEKC) and micro-HPLC.

He came back to the USA in 1993 and joined Dr. Richard Zare's group at Stanford University and Sandia National Labs in California as a Research Associate. He is renowned for his research in the area of CEC and advanced laser detection technology in separation and analysis of pharmaceutical, environmental, biological, and forensic samples. With experimental and theoretical studies he has made great contributions to the research and development of CEC. Dr. Yan leads the world in scientific publications on CEC and has been invited to speak in numerous international conferences, including ACS 2004. He holds several patents in design and manufacturing of CEC instrument and capillary columns, contributing significantly to solving a variety of problems in chemical and biological analyses.

Dr. Chao Yan has been involved deeply in academic research in China . He currently serves as Deputy General Secretary of Chinese Chromatography Association and Associate Editor in Chief of Chinese Journal of Chromatography. Since 1996, he has been an adjunct Professor at Tsinghua and Nan Kai University and co-mentored many Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows. As one of the successful candidates of “Hundred Scholars Initiative” by the Chinese government, he was appointed to a full professorship in 2001 in the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science. Dr. Chao Yan is the founder of Unimicro Technologies, Inc., USA and has served as Chairman and President of the company since 1993. Under his leadership, Unimicro has developed the first commercially available CEC capillary column as well as the first dedicated CEC instrument, TriSep™ CEC system with applications for micro-HPLC and capillary electrophoresis (CE). He set up a wholly owned subsidiary company in Northern China in 1995 and a US-China joint venture in Tianjin in 1999. The latter moved to Shanghai in 2001, and was renamed Unimicro (Shanghai) Technologies Co., Ltd., which has been a leading company in the analytical instrument manufacturing field in China .

Since 1993, Dr. Chao Yan has served as the Chairman of Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs Association and organized several US business delegations to visit China , resulting in several US-China joint ventures and collaborations. He went to the US Congress to lobby for MFN status for China in 1991 and met US President George Bush in the White House. Dr. Yan was recommended by the Chinese General Consulate to meet the Chinese Premier in 1999 and headed a US delegation to attend the National Day celebration of 50 years' Anniversary of People's Republic of China. In 1999, Dr. Yan was also invited to Beijing by the Chinese Ministry of Education to give a talk in a Forum on the Strategic Development on Human Recourses in the 21st Century hosted by the Vice Premier Li Lan-Qing.