In 2018, Emily Liu received an ELATES at Drexel Fellowship, and in 2017, she was awarded an Arab-American Frontiers Fellowship from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She is also the recipient of a Faculty Development Grant from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and numerous teaching and research awards from the School of Engineering at Rensselaer, as well as the Cozzarelli Prize in Engineering and Applied Sciences from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Liu received her B.Sc. in Technical Physics from Peking University in Beijing in 1999, and her Ph.D. in Nuclear Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2005. She was a postdoctoral research associate at MIT with Professor Sow-Hsin Chen. She received the Manson Benedict Fellowship at MIT “for excellence in academic performance and professional promise in nuclear science and engineering.” She has published 67 peer-reviewed journal papers in diverse, respected journals. In addition, she has published 25 peer-reviewed conference proceedings and 34 non-referred conference abstracts. She has presented her research work around the world with 60 invited lectures. Her research has garnered 32 grants to date, enabling $18.1 million total in funding.