Donglei "Emma" Fan

Research Interests

Prof. Fan leads a research program in the interdisciplinary field of materials science, nanotechnology, electromechanical, biomedical and environmental engineering. Her work focuses on the design, fabrication, and control of intelligent micro/nanoscale structures, 3D hierarchical porous materials, and responsive systems. By integrating materials science, physics, chemistry, and data-driven artificial intelligence, her research addresses key challenges in robotics, biomedicine, and personal-use portable water purification devices, and also developing precision tools for biomedical research.

Bio

Dr. D. Emma Fan is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, a faculty member of the Materials Science and Engineering Program and the Texas Materials Institute, and an affiliated professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering,

Prof. Fan is a recipient of two prestigious NSF honors: the NSF CAREER Award (2012) and the NSF Mid-Career Advancement Award (2022). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2021) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) (2024), where she was elected to the Board of Directors (2025) by a vote of over 2,000 Fellows. In 2025, she was named a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors, and has served as an Official Nominator for the Japan Prize since 2017. In recognition of her contributions to engineering and mentorship, she was selected as the 2022 Ilene Busch-Vishniac Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University—an honor that celebrates outstanding women in engineering and aims to inspire the next generation.

Prof. Fan's research program focuses on the fabrication, manipulation, and assembly of intelligent, active micro/nanoscale structures, 3D hierarchical porous materials, and stimulus-responsive materials through understanding and exploiting materials science, physics, and chemistry. The efforts aim at addressing critical problems in robotics, sensing, biomedicine, and water treatment.

Prof. Fan also develops precision tools used in biomedical research. She is an inventor of the patent awarded "Electric Tweezers" technique that can precisely manipulate longitudinal nanoscale materials in aqueous suspension by combined AC and DC electric fields with a precision of 20 nm in positioning and 0.5 degrees in angle under a standard microscope. Her team also discovered the effect of light-semiconductor-electric-field interaction that can be applied to realize multimodal reconfigurable nanodevices.

Prof. Fan's research has spurred a series of publications in leading journals, including Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communications, Science Advances, the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, Physical Review Letters, and Advanced Materials. Dr. Fan is also engaged in technology transfer and entrepreneurship. She is an inventor of 9 granted patents and 8 pending patents and disclosures. Four of her patents have been licensed/optionally licensed to startup companies.

Educational Qualifications

• Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, 2007
• M.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University
• M.S., Materials Science and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University
• B.S., Department of Intensive Instruction, honor program for gifted youth, Nanjing University

Select Awards & Honors

1. Board of Directors, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) (2025)
2. Senior Member, National Academy of Inventors (2025)
3. Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) (2024)
4. General Program Chair, International Conference on Manipulation, Automation, and Robotics at Small Scale (MARSS) (2024)
5. National Science Foundation Mid-Career Advancement Award (2022)
6. 2022 Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering Ilene Busch-Vishniac Lecturer (2022)
7. Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2021)
8. Invited Official Nominator of Japan Prize, The Japan Prize Foundation (since 2017)
9. Invited participant, National Academy of Engineering (NAE) 2013 EU-US Frontier of Engineering Symposium (2013)
10. National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2012)

Related Websites

https://sites.utexas.edu/dfan/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/donglei-emma-fan-4373904/
https://tmi.utexas.edu/academics/graduate-program

Select Publications

ResearchGate