About
- Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University (Apr 2025–present)
Advisor: Prof. Mary C. Boyce- Experiments and constitutive modeling of digitally mixed, multimaterial 3D-printed polymers
- Mechanics-guided design of bio-inspired graded composites and fiber networks
- Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University (Feb 2025)
Advisors: Prof. Thao D. (Vicky) Nguyen and Prof. Sung Hoon Kang- Mechanics and design of viscoelastic liquid crystal elastomer architected materials for energy absorption
- Processing–structure–property characterization of recycled polyolefins
- B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Jun 2019)
Polymers are among the most versatile materials in nature and engineering, from the soft tissues of the human body to tires, protective equipment, aircraft and spacecraft components, biomedical devices, and soft robots. The mechanical behavior of polymers is also among the most complex: deformation is often large and nonlinear; the response depends on loading rate, temperature, and environmental conditions; and the microstructure that governs this behavior is set largely by processing and manufacturing. Predictive models of this behavior are needed to bring new polymers into use more quickly, to design lighter and more resilient structures, and to use recycled polymers in load-bearing applications.
My research lies at the intersection of solid mechanics, polymeric materials, and advanced manufacturing. It establishes predictive relationships among processing, microstructure, time-dependent mechanical behavior, and structural performance, and derives from them design principles across the life cycle of a polymeric part, toward resilient and sustainable engineered systems. The work is organized in three connected directions:
- Physics-based constitutive discovery: a modular library of physics-based constitutive models (relations between stress and the history of deformation) for entire families of polymers, discovered by combining physical insight with machine learning and validated by high-throughput characterization.
- Spatiotemporal programming of structures: coupling geometric instability with the time scales of the constituent materials, to control how quickly and in what sequence a structure responds to mechanical loads or environmental stimuli, for functions such as impact protection, sequential deployment, and timed motion in soft robots.
- Sustainable manufacturing of recycled polymers: the relations among processing, structure, and properties of recycled semicrystalline polymers, established by experiments and constitutive models and used to guide and optimize processing, toward the upcycling of plastic waste.
Together, the three directions form a predictive digital twin of polymeric materials and structures that supports both forward prediction and inverse design. Forward prediction proceeds from processing to microstructure, from microstructure to material response through constitutive models, and from material response to structural performance through simulation. Inverse design proceeds in the opposite direction, from a target performance to the structural design, the constituent material, and the processing route that achieve the target. Measurements on manufactured materials and structures, in turn, refine the constitutive models.
Research Highlights
Recent News
- October 2026I gave an oral presentation, “Designing fiber networks for energy storage and dissipation through multi-material 3D printing of viscoelastic polymers,” at the Society of Engineering Science (SES) Annual Technical Meeting at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. The talk presented my ongoing work on fiber networks printed from digitally mixed viscoelastic polymers to store and dissipate energy. It was great to reconnect with the mechanics community and to hear so many inspiring talks.
- October 2026Excited to share that my second postdoc work at Columbia is now on arXiv: “Time–temperature–composition equivalence of the viscoelastic behavior through the glass transition of digitally mixed 3D-printed polymers”. Classical time–temperature equivalence (TTE) describes the linear viscoelastic behavior of a polymer by a shift along the frequency axis. In digitally mixed polymers made by multimaterial 3D printing, however, composition does more than shift the curves: it moves and broadens the glass transition and raises the rubbery modulus, so each mixture had to be treated on its own. Here, we establish a much more general time–temperature–composition equivalence (TTCE) for the entire printed family. The closed form of the TTCE, a stretched exponential in reduced frequency, gives the stiffness and damping of the family across composition, temperature, and frequency. (LinkedIn post)
- September 2026Excited to share that my first postdoc work with Prof. Mary C. Boyce is now on arXiv, after countless rounds of iteration and revision: “Composition-dependent nonlinear viscoelastic–viscoplastic behavior and constitutive framework for digitally mixed polymers spanning the glass transition”. We proposed a unified finite-strain constitutive framework that describes the whole family of digitally mixed polymers for multi-material 3D printing, from rubbery to glassy, and predicts a mixture we held back from calibration. The framework provides the fundamental tool for understanding these materials and a predictive basis for designing graded multi-material structures. Very proud of this one. Our collaborative paper with Prof. Adrián Buganza-Tepole’s group on data-driven discovery of composition-dependent constitutive models for the same materials is also out. More papers are on the way, stay tuned! (LinkedIn post)
- July 2026I was honored to receive an invitation to give a presentation at the Third Advances in Applied Mechanics Conference (AAM 2027), Madeira, Portugal. I am very grateful for this recognition of my work.
- June 2026I attended the 20th U.S. National Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNCTAM 2026) in Pasadena, CA, and gave an oral presentation, “From Digital Multi-Materials to Bio-Inspired Gradients: Mechanics-Guided Design of Compositionally Mixed Soft Materials.” The work introduces the new concept of time–composition equivalence and develops a unified constitutive framework spanning the full spectrum from elastomeric to glassy behavior. It truly felt like home to be part of such an inspiring mechanics community, and the discussions afterward sparked many new ideas. We are currently wrapping up the related papers — stay tuned!
- June 2026My abstract was accepted for the Society of Engineering Science (SES) Annual Technical Meeting, to be held at Purdue University this October. I look forward to presenting my work and connecting with the mechanics community.