We are celebrating the promotion of two of our faculty members who worked hard and are still dedicating time and effort to serve the students, the community, and research at NC State.
Lori Petrovich, Teaching Professor
Teaching professor of chemistry
NC State University
Dr. Lori Petrovich joined the NC State Department of Chemistry in 2002. On day one, she became a great fan of all things Wolfpack: our inventive students, the beautiful campus and the sports teams that persevere throughout the season.
“Dr. P” specializes in General Chemistry instruction and has educated an estimated 9,000+ students over the years. During her 17-year tenure as Director of the General Chemistry Laboratories, she ensured that nearly 75,000 lab students gathered weekly to study titration or spectrophotometry under the supervision of a helpful and knowledgeable graduate teaching assistant. She has trained nearly 1000 chemistry graduate students in the beginning fundamentals of teaching pedagogy and classroom management.
Dr. Petrovich strives to support students at any hour of the day or night by providing many resources for independent learning. These include self-study worksheets and high-quality, succinct videos. Overall, the 270+ videos she has created for lecture and lab courses hosted on the NCSU General Chemistry YouTube channel have had 688,000 views since 2018.
Go Pack!
Yi Xiao, Professor
Professor of chemistry
NC State University
Prof. Xiao joined the Department of Chemistry at NC State in 2021. The research in Xiao lab lies at the intersection of analytical chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology, and is focused on the discovery, characterization, and practical application of nucleic-acid-based bioreceptors known as aptamers for practical applications such as medical diagnostics, environment monitoring, forensics and therapeutics.
The Xiao lab has received funding from a wide variety of institutions, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the US Department of Agriculture, and even private entities in industry.
Over the past twelve years, Prof. Xiao has mentored 17 graduate and 45 undergraduate students, with eight students receiving their PhD under her mentorship. For the past three years, Prof. Xiao has taught graduate students (CH795: Macromolecular Biosensors) and undergraduate students (CH415: Analytical Chemistry II) in our department. She also has been providing significant service to the department by serving on several committees.
Prof. Xiao was recently named LORD Corporation Distinguished Scholar in 2023 and recognized as a University Faculty Scholar in 2024.
