His research interests are in material chemistry, processing, and manufacturing. Examples include two-dimensional (2D) soft materials, organic nanocrystals, and metal nanostructures. He is interested in the application of these materials in energy and sustainability and as a platform for materials education. Huang has been honored with the IUPAC Young Chemists Prize, an NSF CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and the Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. He received his B.S. degree in chemical physics from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2000 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in 2004. Huang then became a Miller Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, before joining Northwestern in 2007.