About Me

I will be joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania as a tenure-track Assistant Professor starting in August 2024.

I am currently serving as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the guidance of Prof. Luke P. Lee at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Prior to this, I obtained my PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from Duke University, under the supervision of Prof. Tony Jun Huang. My research primarily focuses on Acoustics, Microfluidics, and Biomedical Devices, with a particular interest in applying novel micro/nano technologies in the fields of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering.

I have authored/co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed articles published in renowned journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Protocols, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Small, and Lab on a Chip, among others. My articles have received more than 1,900 citations as documented by Google Scholar (h-index: 26). And my work has been featured in various popular media outlets, such as Nature Materials, The Science Advisory Board, ‘2022 in science’ by Wikipedia, Phys.org, and MIT Technology Review. I also serve as a reviewer for several esteemed journals, including Lab on a Chip, IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control, Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, and Ultrasonics.

Openings

My group has multiple positions available for Ph.D. students, postdocs, master’s, and undergraduate students for the Fall 2024 and the Spring/Fall 2025. If you are interested in joining my group at the University of Pennsylvania, please send me an email (syang@bwh.harvard.edu) with your CV.

Research Interests

• Acoustics
• Microfluidics
• Biomedical Devices

News

• 2024.04 - I accepted an offer to join the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania at the rank of Assistant Professor within the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics.
• 2023.07 - I won the Microgrant Award from Brigham Research Institute, and served as the principal investigator.
• 2023.07 - My article “Acoustic tweezers for high-throughput single-cell analysis” was published in Nature Protocols, and featured as front cover image.
• 2022.05 - I won the Outstanding Dissertation Award at Duke University.
• 2022.03 - My article “Harmonic acoustics for dynamic and selective particle manipulation” was published in Nature Materials.
• 2022.03 - I won the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award at Duke University.