Journal of Material Sciences & Engineering

Donglei Fan

Donglei Fan
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Texas at Austin, USA

Biography

Dr. Donglei (Emma) Fan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin since January 2010. She received her bachelors degree in chemistry from the Department of Intensive Instruction, an honor program for gifted youth, in Nanjing University (NJU) in 1999, masters (2003) and doctorate (2007) degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU). She also obtained another masters degree in Electrical Engineering from JHU in 2005. Between 2007 and 2009, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at JHU. Dr. Fan has received several scholarships, such as a NSF Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology Summer Program, Postdoctoral Fellowship in JHU, Scholarship for Excellency several times from NJU, and early admission to NJU with Freshman Scholarship waived of National College Examination. Dr. Fans research aims at creating unique methods to bridge the fabrication of nanomaterials with their applications in electronics, biology, MEMS/NEMS, and energy devices. Extensive researches on nanomaterials have revealed that they often exhibit unique electronic, mechanical, optical and magnetic properties. In most cases, these properties are far superior to those of the bulk materials due to the Quantum Confinement Effect and large surface areas. However, the applications of nanomaterials are still largely hindered by the difficulties in manipulation and integration of them into useful devices. Dr. Fan invented a powerful and non-destructive technique, called "Electric Tweezers", for the manipulation of nanoentities in suspension by electric fields. The manipulation includes transport and rotation that can lead to separation, concentration, joining and assembly etc. This work has spurred a series of publications on major journals including Nature Nanotechnology, Physical Review Letters, Applied Physics Letters, as well as two pending patents. Her work was widely reported by the academic news media such as Nano Today, MRS Bulletin, PhysOrg.com, APS news, World Gold Council, and had been selected multiple times by Virtual Journals of Nanoscale Science and Technology.
Dr. Fan has given over ten invited talks including SPIE meeting, Washington University in St. Louis, University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, Palo Alto Research Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, hiking, and reading.

Research Interest

Nanomaterials design and synthesis; nano-biotechnolgy.