What am I doing now
I am currently working as Associate Professor (Research Associate) in Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS, IOP). I am working with a fantastic group (SM8) of brilliant colleagues and I still enjoy watching those microbes move.
Research summary
I am an experimental biophysicist. I started with working on graphene nano-electronics. Then I switched field to study biological ciliary flow and green algae. Later, my research has expanded to include more micro-organisms, such as bacteria, microglia, and other somatic cells. I enjoy developing new experimental techniques and collaborating with friends from other fields. This makes half of my passion for doing research.
The other half lies in my research topic. How does motility emerge across scales? From motion of motor proteins (10^-8 m), to flagellar rotation and ciliary bending (10^-5 m), and from collective swimming (10^-4 m) to the macroscopic ciliary flow (10^-2 m). There emerges a ladder of order, and nothing is more fascinating.
Some experiences
2020-2024
Postdoc fellowship
Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science (IOP, CAS)
2015-2020
PhD in biophysics
Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
2011-2014
MSc. in nano-electronics
University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)
2007-2011
BSc. in physics
University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)
Selected publications
Advanced Science, 2402643, 2024; 1st author.
Selected for the Journal's annual paper (64/~5000)
Physics Review Letters, 133: 048302, 2024; Corresponding author.
APS news, Editor's suggestion
eLife, 13:e86102, 2024; 1st author & corresponding author.
Cover story, selected for eLife digest.
Research, 6:0063, 2023; 1st author, equal contribution.
Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 915, A70, 2021; 1st author, equal contribution.
Biophysical Journal, 118, 2914, 2020; 1st author, equal contribution.
Physics Review Letters, 122: 124502, 2019; 1st author.
Nano Letters, 15(10): 6620–6625, 2015; 1st author, equal contribution.
Physical Review Letters, 115: 126804, 2015; 2nd author.
Applied Physics Letters, 105(7): 073510, 2014; 2nd author.
Scientific Reports, 3: 3175, 2013; 1st author.
Research projects
-
Macro-simulator of cilia
-
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics of active systems
-
Synchronization
-
Structure of bacterial turbulence
-
Kinematics of cell migration
-
What is the spatio-temporal structure of bacterial turbulance?
-
How is bacterial turbulence different from the classical ones in energy dissipation.
-
How do individual geometry and hydrodynamics affect the collective?
-
Resolving the different mechanism in the microbes' entrapment by solid surfaces.
-
Characterizing the spatiotemporal dynamics of the ciliary flow, fundamental hydrodynamics, experimental measurement, and numerical simulations.
-
Studying the hydrodynamics of C. reinhardtii mastigonemes, a flagellar ultrastructure, AKA fibrous flagellar hair.
-
Studying flagellar synchronization and flagellar coupling to external flows.
-
Design and fabricate graphene quantum dot hybrid devices, that are connected to each other by a superconducting resonator.
-
Use the device to characterize the electronic charge state in graphene quantum dots.
-
Design and fabricate graphene quantum dots.
-
Characterize the electronic controllability by different gating designs.
For details and other fun projects, see in Project & Publications