2020 Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Outstanding Recent Faculty Hires

OUTSTANDING RECENT FACULTY HIRES Marilyn Minus, chair of Northeastern’s Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, is proud to recognize our most recent faculty hires.

Rouzbeh Amini

Associate Professor PhD: University of Minnesota, 2010 Assistant Professor: University of Akron, 2013-19 Joined Northeastern: January 2020 Scholarship Focus: Biomechanics, mechanobiology, biotransport Awards and Recent Projects: • “In-vivo Assessment of Human Iris Mechanical Properties,” BrightFocus Foundation (PI), 2018 • “Multi-scale Assessment of Biomechanical Alterations in Tricuspid Valves Following Pregnancy,” NSF (PI), 2019

Ruobing Bai

Assistant Professor PhD: Harvard University, 2018 Postdoctoral Fellow: California Institute of Technology, 2018-2020 Joining Northeastern: Janurary 2021 Scholarship Focus: Solid mechanics and large deformation, soft active materials: hydrogels, liquid crystal elastomers, and biomaterials, fracture and adhesion of materials, multi-physics of materials: mechanics, thermodynamics, chemistry, optics, and electromagnetism, instability of materials

Laurent Lessard

Associate Professor PhD: Stanford University, 2011 Assistant Professor: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2015-2020 Joined Northeastern: August 2020 Scholarship Focus: Control theory, linear systems, optimization algorithms, machine learning Awards and Recent Projects: • CAREER: “Automated analysis and design of optimization algorithms,” NSF (PI), 2018 • “A Control-Theoretic Approach to Distributed Optimization,” NSF (PI), 2019

Yaning Li

Associate Professor PhD: University of Michigan, 2007 Assistant/Associate Professor: University of New Hampshire, 2012-2019 Joined Northeastern: August 2019 Scholarship Focus: Mechanics of materials, bio-inspired engineering, and additive manufacturing; mechanics of innovative architectured materials; mechanical metamaterials; biological materials Awards and Recent Projects: • CAREER: “Mechanics of a New Family of Auxetic Chiral Structures,” NSF (PI), 2016 • “A Bio-Inspired Strategy for In-Plane Energy Dissipation Through Suture Interfaces,” NSF (PI), 2017

NORTHEASTERN ENGINEERING

Hongwei Sun

Professor PhD: Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1998 Professor: University of Massachusetts Lowell, 2018-2020 Joined Northeastern: August 2020 Scholarship Focus: Multiphase thermal transport phenomena, acoustic wave bio and chemical sensors and actuators, thermal management of fibers and films, thermal energy storage materials and processing, microchannel cooling systems, nanoimprinting process and applications, MEMS/NEMS fabrication, microfluidics and bioMEMS; nanoscale magnetic assembly and applications Awards and Recent Projects: • “A Low-Cost, “Digital” Biosensing Platform with Single Protein Biomarker Sensitivity,” NSF (PI), 2019 • “Nanoscale Metal Network Enhanced Phase Change Materials,” NSF (PI), 2016

Xiaoyu Tang

Assistant Professor PhD: Princeton University, 2018 Postdoctoral Associate: University of California, Santa Barbara, 2018-2020 Joining Northeastern: January 2021 Scholarship Focus: Fluid mechanics, soft matter, microfluidics, active colloidal systems, electrokinetic flow, interfacial phenomena, complex fluids, reactive flow, biological flow; additive manufacturing, material synthesis and processing in flow, oil/gas recovery and remediation

Yi Zheng

Associate Professor PhD: Columbia University, 2014 Assistant/Associate Professor: University of Rhode Island, 2014-2019 Joined Northeastern: August 2019 Scholarship Focus: Thermo-fluids, multifunctional composites, multiphase structured matter, micro/nanoengineering Awards and Recent Projects: • CAREER: “Investigation of Nanoscale Radiative Heat Transfer for Enhanced Thermal Infrared Energy Conversion and Cooling,” NSF (PI), 2019 • “Novel Metamaterials for Infrared Radiative Cooling,” NASA Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (PI), 2018

INNOVATING FOR SOCIETY

The department has 55 tenured/tenure-track faculty members­—one who is a National Academy member and two who direct major federally funded research centers. In addition, the department has received external funding awards of $31M from 2018 to 2020. Our downtown Boston campus facilitates collaborations with major medical centers, research labs, and industry. Our faculty actively contribute to scholarship and societal need.

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