Prof Qiong Cai is specialised in multiscale materials design using both experimental and computational approaches for sustainable energy storage and conversion applications including fuel cells, batteries, electrolysers, and catalytic conversion of chemicals. She has worked across disciplines and collaborates widely with colleagues from physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science within Surrey and from different national and international institutions. Her group work at nano-scale materials synthesis and design, meso-scale electrode engineering and 3D microstructure modelling, and system-level modelling and optimization.

Qiong has three young children in local primary and secondary schools, and she shares childcare and school runs with her husband who is a secondary school teacher.

Prior to joining Surrey, she was a research associate at Imperial College London (2007-2012), working on fuel cells and hydrogen electrolysers. She obtained her PhD degree in Chemical Engineering (2007) from University of Edinburgh (UK) with the support of an Overseas Research Scholarship from the Universities UK, where she worked on fundamental understanding of porous materials. Her MEng training (2003) was in Materials Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University (China), where she worked on experimental materials synthesis.