Professor Yaling Liu

Yaling Liu, Ph.D. is P.C. Rossin Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Bioengineering Program, Lehigh University. Department of Mechanical And Aerospace Engineering. His areas of expertise are: biomechanics, micro/nanofluidics, micro/nanoscale system simulation, fluid-structure interaction, solid mechanics, and nanotechnology.
 
Yaling’s primary research interest is fluid-structure interaction at the micro/nano scale and in biological systems. He has developed novel immersed finite element and molecular dynamics based numerical methods for the simulation of biological and nanoscale systems. His methods have been used in several applications at the bio-nano interface, including the design and optimization of Electric Field Guided Assembly (EFGA) of nanowires, linking blood rheology and viscoelasticity to the underlying blood cell aggregation, characterization of flexible valve-viscous fluid interaction, and dynamics of an artificial heart.
 
Another research area that he is interested in is nanofluidics, i.e., determining liquid flows through nanoscale devices. He has been using molecular dynamics and parallel computing to study the slip dynamics at solid/liquid interface and diffusion of liquids/biomolecules in nano-channels. Currently, his research projects are aimed at combining electrohydrodynamic, biological, nanoscale computational techniques to study fluid-structure interaction problems in biological and nanoscale systems, for the purpose of designing better cardiovascular implants and lab-on-chip devices.
 
Prior to joining UTA, Yaling worked as a senior engineer for a year in the Mechanical Research and Development Center at Seagate Technology. He is a member of ASME, APS, and USACM. His publications include book chapters in Mechanics and Materials: Theory, Multiscale Methods and Applications, Finite Element Methods: 1970’s and Beyond, Meshfree Particle Methods, and the Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. His work has been published in various peer-reviewed journals.
 
He coauthored Manipulation of Nanoparticles and Biomolecules by Electric Field and Surface Tension, Fluid Flow Assisted Dielectrophoretic Assembly of Nanowires, Immersed Electrokinetic Finite Element Method, Rheology of Red Blood Cell Aggregation in Capillary by Computer Simulation, Dielectrophoretic Assembly of Nanowires, Immersed Finite Element Method and Applications to Biological Systems, and Coupling of Navier—Stokes Equations with Protein Molecular Dynamics and Its Application to Hemodynamics. Read the full list of his publications!
 
Yaling earned his B.S. in Engineering Mechanics at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 2001, his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL in 2004, and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL in 2006 with the thesis Integrated Simulation Tools for Fluid-Structure Interactions in Bio-Nano Systems.