Hang Lu received her B.S. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and her M.S.C.E.P and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the College of Engineering and C. J. "Pete" Silas Chair, School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Lu's research interests involve the interface of engineering and biology and her lab, the Lu Fluidics Group, is conducting research at these interface levels. The Lu Fluidics Group engineers BioMEMS (Bio Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) and microfluidic devices to address questions in neuroscience, cell biology, and biotechnology that are difficult to answer using conventional techniques.

Faces of Research - Profile Article

Nian Liu began as an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in January 2017. He received his B.S. in 2009 from Fudan University (China), and Ph.D. in 2014 from Stanford University, where he worked with Prof. Yi Cui on the structure design for Si anodes for high-energy Li-ion batteries. In 2014-2016, he worked with Prof. Steven Chu at Stanford University as a postdoc, where he developed in situ optical microscopy to probe beam-sensitive battery reactions. Dr. Liu 's lab at Georgia Tech is broadly interested in the combination of nanomaterials, electrochemistry, and light microscopy for understanding and addressing the global energy challenges. Dr. Liu is the recipient of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) Daniel Cubicciotti Award (2014) and American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator Award (2015).

Seung Woo Lee joined the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in January of 2013. Lee received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at MIT, focusing on designing high-energy and high-power density nanostructured electrodes for electrochemical energy storage devices, and synthesizing catalysts for electrochemical energy conversion of small molecules such as methanol oxidation and O2 reduction. He conducted his postdoctoral research in designing electrodes for lithium rechargeable batteries and catalysts for solar energy storage in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry at MIT.

Dr. Wilbur Lam received his B.A. from Rice University in 1995, his M.D. from the Baylor College of Medicine in 1999 and his Ph.D. from the University of California,San Francisco/University of California, Berkeley Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering in 2008. He completed his Residency in Pediatrics from UCSF in 2002 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley from 2008-2010. Dr. Lam's research involves integrating microtechnology ,development, experimental hematology and oncology and clinical medicine. His interdisciplinary laboratory, comprising clinicians, engineers, and biologists, is dedicated to applying and developing micro/nanotechnologies to study, diagnose, and treat blood disorders, cancer, and childhood diseases. This unique "basement to bench to bedside" approach to biomedical research is enabled by our lab's dual locations at the Emory University School of Medicine and the Georgia Institute of Technology and our affiliations with the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta hospitals.

Dr. Gabe Kwong is an Assistant Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Tech School of Engineering and Emory School of Medicine. His research program is conducted at the interface of the life sciences, medicine and engineering where a central focus is understanding how to harness the sophisticated defense mechanisms of immune cells to eradicate disease and provide protective immunity. Kwong has pioneered numerous biomedical technologies and published in leading scientific journals such as Nature Biotechnology and Nature Medicine. His work has been profiled broadly including coverage in The Economist, NPR, BBC, and WGBH-2, Boston 's PBS station. Professor Kwong earned his B.S. in Bioengineering with Highest Honors from the University of California, Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from California Institute of Technology with Professor James R. Heath. He conducted postdoctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Professor Sangeeta N. Bhatia. For his work, Dr. Kwong has been awarded the NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, named a "Future Leader in Cancer Research and Translational Medicine" by the Massachusetts General Hospital, and awarded the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface, a distinction given to the 10 most innovative bioengineers in the nation. Dr. Kwong holds seven issued or pending patents in cancer nanotechnology.

Kim joined the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor in July 2013. Prior to his current appointment, he was a Postdoctoral Associate in the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, where he developed biomimetic microsystems for probing nanoparticle behaviors in the inflamed endothelium and for synthesizing therapeutic and diagnostic nanomaterials. His doctorate research at CMU focused on closed-loop microfluidic control systems for lab-on-a-chip applications to biochemistry and developmental biology. Prior to his Ph.D., he was a researcher in areas of dynamics, controls, and robotics at R&D Divisions of Hyundai-Kia Motors and Samsung Electronics for six years.

Mijin Kim is an assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. Her research program is focused on the development and implementation of novel nanosensor technology to improve cancer research and diagnosis. The Kim Lab combines nanoscale engineering, fluorescence spectroscopy, machine learning approaches, and biochemical tools (1) to understand the exciton photophysics in low-dimensional nanomaterials, (2) to develop diagnostic/nano-omics sensor technology for early disease detection, and (3) to investigate biological processes with focusing problems in lysosome biology and autophagy. For her scientific innovation, Kim has received multiple recognitions, including being named as one of the STAT Wunderkinds and the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 List.

Benjamin Klein received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994 and 1995, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign in 2000. The subject of his doctoral dissertation was the theory and modeling of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), which are a class of semiconductor laser used for telecommunications applications.

From 2000-2003, Klein worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, working on the modeling and design of semiconductor quantum-dot based devices, including single photon emitters and single electron transistors. From 2003-2020 he was a faculty member at the Georgia Institute of Technology, first on the Savannah campus, and later in Atlanta. At the time of his departure from Georgia Tech, he was an Associate Professor and the Associate Chair for Graduate Affairs in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Yonggang Ke's research is highly interdisciplinary combining chemistry, biology, physics, material science, and engineering. The overall mission of his research is to use interdisciplinary research tools to program nucleic-acid-based "beautiful structures and smart devices" at nanoscale, and use them for scientific exploration and technological applications. Specifically, his team focuses on (1) developing new DNA self-assembly paradigms for constructing DNA nanostructures with greater structural complexity, and with controllable sizes and shapes; (2) developing new imaging or drug delivery systems based on DNA nanostructuresl; (3) exploring design of novel DNA-based nanodevices for understanding basic biological questions at molecular level; (4) developing DNA-templated protein devices for constructing artificial bio-reactors.

For cancer-related research/application, Ke will focus on using DNA/RNA nanostructures as drug delivery vehicles. He is also interested in using DNA/RNA nanostructures to study cancer cell biology at molecular level.

Peter Kasson is an international leader in the study of biological membrane structure, dynamics, and fusion, with particular application to how viruses gain entry to cells. His group performs both high-level experimental and computational work – a powerful combination that is critical to advancing our understanding of this important problem. His publications describe inventive approaches to the measurement of viral fusion rates and characterization of fusion mechanisms, and to the modeling of large-scale biomolecular and lipid assemblies. He has applied these insights to the prediction of pandemic outbreaks and drug resistance, with particular attention to Zika, SARS-CoV-2, and influenza pathogens in recent years. See https://kassonlab.org/ for more information.