Awards

Gordon Tang Goodwin Support Fund (Class of 2024), The 16th US-Japan Symposium on Drug Delivery Systems
Convergence Scholar (Class of 2024), by Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine at MIT

Bio

I obtained my Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2022, after a fruitful journey in the laboratory of Professor Hai-Quan Mao at the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology. My Ph.D. thesis focused on the size of polymeric and lipid nanoparticles for gene delivery and investigated how this central parameter is correlated with nanoparticle payload and assembly; and more importantly, how size can be controlled to boost the performances of nanoparticles in different applications. After my thesis defense in March 2022, I stayed in the same lab as a postdoc until December 2022 with a specialized project of nanoparticle size-mediated, targeted mRNA delivery to immune cells in vivo, in collaboration with Professor Jordan J. Green. From all these projects at Hopkins, I have published 6 peer-reviewed papers as the first author or corresponding author (with 1 more under review), and co-authored 9 patent applications (6 granted, and 1 successfully licensed to a biotech company). They contributed to essential challenges in the translational research of nanomedicine for gene delivery.

I then joined Koch Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Prof. Daniel G. Anderson and Robert S. Langer in January 2023. I am currently working to develop the next generation of mRNA vaccine for infectious diseases.

Prior to my Ph.D., I studied polymer materials and engineering at the Department of Chemical Engineering in Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), where my senior design advisor, Professor Baohua Guo, introduced me into the biomedical engineering field.

The summary of my current research interests and directions can be found here.

Besides research, I completed the certification program offered by Johns Hopkins University Teaching Academy that aims to train graduate students into effective teachers, and enjoyed teaching a undergraduate-level course titled Introduction to Nanomedicine that I created and offered in the winter semesters of 2021 and 2022. I also serve as an independent reviewer for prestigious journals including ACS Nano, Biomaterials, Journal of Controlled Release, and Molecular Therapy series journals. Outside the university, I enjoy hiking with a great love of the national parks around the US, video games, and searching for amazing food in the city.