Donglei “Emma”Fan

Donglei "Emma" Fan
ProfessorHarry L. Kent, Jr. Professorship in Mechanical Engineering

Research Areas
Research Interests

Nanomaterials design and synthesis; Nano-biotechnolgy; Nano-manipulation; Nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS); Energy

About

D. Emma Fan is a professor in the Walker 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,

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.

She 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.

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, 2005
  • M.S., Materials Science and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, 2003
  • B.S., Department of Intensive Instruction, Nanjing University

Select Awards & Honors

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

Select Publications

Google Scholar Research Gate

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