| Northwestern University | Evanston, IL |
| Research Assistant Professor | 2019-Present |
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| University of Colorado - Boulder | Boulder, CO |
| Postdoctoral Fellow with Profs. Wei Tan & Xiaoyun Ding | 2015-2019 |
| Developing a surface acoustic wave (SAW) based microfluidic device for stimulation of exosome production and active drug loading into exosomes |
| Initiated a new 3D-printing paradigm enabling orthogonal control of matrix stiffness and geometry in 3D structures; and successfully fabricated the world’s first 3D-printed blood vessel with hierarchical braches and heterogeneous stiffness by working with Prof. Xiaobo Yin’s group in micro/nano manufacturing |
| Developed a “photo-click” hydrogel platform with independent control over matrix structure, elasticity, and composition for functional tissue regeneration by working with Prof. Stephanie Bryant’s group in click chemistry |
| Established combinatorial ECM microarray platform for high-throughput screening of cell-matrix interactions, and it allows simultaneous screening of ~1875 compositions on one glass slide by working with Prof. Dr. Kurt Stenmark’s group in vascular physiopathology |
| Developed a strategy for directing mesenchymal stem cell differentiation into vascular smooth muscle cells by engineering extracellular environments through click chemistry |
| Mentored 3 undergraduate and 3 graduate students in independent research projects |
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| The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology | Hong Kong |
| Graduate Research Assistant & Visiting Scholar with Profs. Yang Leng & Pingbo Huang | 2009-2015 |
| Developed a novel micropatterned platform for high-throughput screening of topographical effects on vascular cell selectivity and blood compatibility |
| Developed a novel approach to covalently immobilize multiple biomolecules with amine or carboxyl groups to a variety of materials via mussel-inspired polydopamine coating |
| Elucidated the interplay between immobilized biomolecules and substrate topography in modulating cell behavior, and their combined effects on vascular cell selectivity |
| Performed molecular structure characterization and analysis of polymer coating using mass spectroscopy |
| Mentored 3 graduate students in their dissertation projects |
