01/2024: Amirreza Ghaznavi, PhD Candidate, started an internship at Matregenix in Irvine, CA, supported by the NSF INTERN program. Matregenix is an early-stage company focused on the development of nanofiber technology, offering highly customizable nanofibrous materials for a diverse range of applications. Mr. Ghaznavi will be interning at Matregenix for 4 months.

10/2023: Lingyuan Yang successfully defended her MS thesis. Congratulations!

10/2023: Weiqi Zhao successfully defended her PhD thesis. Congratulations Dr. Zhao!

10/2023: Our high school researchers Jerry Zhou and Jack Zhou successfully delivered an oral presentation at the 18th International Symposium on Visual Computing, in Lake Tahoe, NV. They are the first high school presenters in the symposium’s history. Congratulations!

06/2023: Our PhD student Mengren Wu has defended his thesis and he is joining Christian Brothers University as an Assistant Professor. Congratulations and best wishes to Prof. Wu!

05/2023: Dr. Jie Xu received 2023 Teaching Award from College of Engineering at UIC!

12/2022: Dr. Yuan Gao is a one of the seven recipients of the UIC Graduate College’s annual Outstanding Thesis/Dissertation Award for her dissertation entitled “Acoustic Bubbles in Microfluidics for Biological and Biomedical Applications.” More on award website. Congratuations!

08/2022: Our PhD graduate Yuan Gao is joining The University of Memphis as an Assistant Professor. Congratulations and good luck to you Prof. Gao!

04/2022: Congratulations to Yuan Gao on receiving the 2022 College of Engineering Exceptional Research Promise Award. This is a monetary award of $500 given by the college to recognize the research excellence of our graduate students.

03/2022: Congratulations to Yuan Gao on receiving Second Runner-Up in the 2022 UIC Three Minute Thesis Competition. It comes with a $200 award prize as well as a certificate.

12/2021: Congratulations to Mengren Wu on receiving an Award for Graduate Research/the Deiss Award in Biomedical Graduate Research! The award provides $1,500 grant to support Mengren’s project ““Inkjet-based electric microfluidic devices for separating and monitoring circulating tumor cells”.

06/2021: Alireza successfully defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations Dr. Ali!

05/2021: Congratulations to Yuan Gao on receiving an Award for Graduate Research/the Deiss Award in Biomedical Graduate Research! The award is intended to recognize outstanding researchers among UIC graduate students. The recipients represent the excellence of our programs and students, and they will make outstanding contributions to learning and society. The award comes with $1,500 grant to enhance the quality of the recepients’ research, and to assist in their progress toward completion of the advanced degree.

05/2021: Congratulations to Alireza on receiving UIC College of Engineering Graduate Student Award for Exceptional Research Promise! The award aims to recognize PhD students who are within one year of graduation and have excelled in their research pursuits, as measured by scholarly activities: impactful research through refereed publications, and other research-focused activities. Each department nominates at least one and up to 2% of their PhD students from their unit. The awardee receives $500 cash prize.

04/2021: Congratulations to Alireza on his recent paper “Phononics of Graphene Interfaced with Flowing Ionic Fluid: An Avenue for High Spatial Resolution Flow Sensor Applications” being accepted by ACS Nano!

11/2020: Our MS student Amirreza Ghaznavi has succesfully defended his thesis. He is continuing as a PhD student. Congratulations!

08/2020: Our PhD graduate Yang Lin has joined University of Rhode Island as an Assistant Professor. Congratulations and good luck to you Prof. Lin!

04/2020: Our PhD student Alireza Ahmadian Yazdi has received the prestigious Dean’s Scholar Fellowship, which is a one-year award presented by the Dean of the Graduate College in recognition of a student’s scholarly achievement. The award is intended to provide the most distinguished, advanced-level graduate students with a period of time dedicated solely to the completion of their programs. A maximum of ONE student may be nominated by each program. Congratulations, Ali!

03/2020: Dr. Xu received $100,000 research grant from Anthem, Inc. to support project “Advanced interpretation of human microvascular blood rheology for cardiovascular disease diagnosis”. This project is in collaboration with Bruce I. Gaynes, OD, PharmD. at Loyola University/VA Hospital.

10/2019: Yang Lin successfully defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Lin!

09/2019: Dr. Xu was selected as a 2019 Researchers to Know by the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition (ISTC)! See news article here.

05/2019: Dmitry Gritsenko successfully defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Gritsenko!

05/2019: Dr. Xu is now the advisor of UIC Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE).

05/2019: Dr. Xu and co-PIs (Dr. Kamesh Bikkavilli from UIC and Dr. Xiaolin Chen from Washington State University) have received $457,733 from NSF to support their project entitled “Towards High-Throughput Label-Free Circulating Tumor Cell Separation using 3D Deterministic Dielectrophoresis (D-Cubed)”.

05/2019: Dr. Xu has received the 2019 Teaching Award from College of Engineering in recognition of his outstanding teaching contributions!

03/2019: Our undergraduate researcher Vanessa Pineda received a Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Award at amount of $2,000. Congratulations!

03/2019: Our PhD student Alireza Ahmadian Yazdi starts his internship at Beckman Coulter: PhD Candidate Gaining Industry Experience via NSF INTERN Grant, see also on UIC Today: Engineering doctoral student gains industry experience through NSF program

02/2019: Our work has been featured on Advances in Engineering: Advances in 3D Printed Micromachines by UIC Researchers.

01/2019: Dr. Xu is named the 2018 UIC Researcher of the Year Award in Rising Star category in the field of Natural Sciences and Engineering. See campus announcement  See College news UIC Today Article

01/2019: Our PhD student Yuan Gao received a $500 research grant from Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid program. This program is highly competitive with only 12-15% funding rate. The fund will support Yuan for her project “Acoustic microfluidic pump for portable medical devices”. Congratulations to Yuan!

11/2018: Can Gao successfully defended her MS thesis. Congratulations!

09/2018: Dr. Xu gave a seminar at Purdue University Northwest as part their “Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series”. See more details here: UIC Professor’s Microfluidics Focus Generates Research Streams

05/2018: Dr. Xu has received the 2018 Research Award from College of Engineering in recognition of his outstanding research contributions!

05/2018: Our MS students Matteo Tamone, Edoardo Di Giuda, Enrico Grassilli and Marco Ragone have successfully defended their theses. Congratulations to them!

04/2018: Our BioE senior design team (Luyao Guo, Wei Tian, Chang Tan, and Feixian Wu) won the 1st place Award in the category of “Biomedical Engineering” in the College of Engineering EXPO–Senior Design Competition for their project “Electrical Measurement of Epithelial Barrier Function in PDMS Lung-on-chips Fabricated via 3D Printing Technologies”. Congratulations!

02/2018: Dr. Xu is a co-PI (PI: Dr. Ian Papautsky from UIC Bioengineering) on a $50,000 project titled “Microfluidic Chips for Electrochemical Metal Extraction” funded by the Center for Advanced Design and Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics (CADMIM). For more information about CADMIM, check out here: http://www.inrf.uci.edu/cadmim

02/2018: Dr. Xu is starting a new collaboration with Dr. Xuejun Li from the Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Medicine at Rockford, with the help of a $10,000 seed grant from the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research (OVCR), as a result of the UIC Functional and Regenerative Materials Strategic Initiative. The project will explore “Microfluidics with embedded liquid metal electrodes for human neurons stimulation”. See UIC news: “Can liquid metals help in nerve repair?“

09/2017: Our undergraduate researchers Sabreena Sundrani and Anas Sayoury have both received a Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Award ($3,000 each). Congratulations!

08/2017: Dr. Xu is one of the eight in the nation to receive the NASA Early Career Faculty Award. This award is given to “outstanding faculty researchers early in their careers as they conduct space technology development of high priority to NASA”. The grant worth $600,000 in total and it will support Dr. Xu’s 3-year project titled “PIPES: Piezoelectric Instrument for Precision Exploration Sampling”.  View MIE news   View the NASA Press Release

07/2017: Dr. Xu is leading a team of researchers to receive $689,868 from NSF-BSF program to study “Complex liquid droplet structures as new optical and optomechanical materials”. This is a collaborative effort among multiple PIs. The two other NSF PIs are Lev Deych from CUNY and Lan Yang from Washington University in St. Louis. The NSF total is $449,868, and UIC share is $148,108. Since this is an NSF-BSF (US-Israel Binantional Science Foundation) grant, the Israeli partner Tal Carmon from Technion will be funded by BSF at the amount of $240,000, making the overall project cost $689,868. The project also involves collaboration with Michael I. Mishchenko from NASA, whose effort will be funded by NASA.

06/2017: Wajid Ali successfully defended his MS thesis and will receive a Master’s degree. Congratulations!

04/2017: Our BioE senior design team (Grace Brown, Alyssa Straits, Christine Massie, Sarita Deshpande, and Shilpa Kolachina) won the 1st place Globe Award in the category of “Health Systems and Assisted Living” in the College of Engineering EXPO–Senior Design Competition for their project “Lung-on-a-chip”. Congratulations!

04/2017: Our MIE senior design team (David Cartolano, Joshua Chavez, Krisli Dimo, and Elias El Metennani) won the 2nd place honorable mentions in the College of Engineering EXPO–Senior Design Competition for their project “Manufacturing Process of Low Frequency Acoustic Damping Metamaterial based on Stucturally-Trapped Bubbles”. Congratulations!

04/2017: Dr. Xu received $18,389 from Washington State University as a subcontractor of an NIH R21 to study noised-induced hearing loss using a novel zebrafish model.

03/2017: Our undergraduate researcher Sarita Deshpande is one of 36 American students to win the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship for graduate studies at the University of Cambridge. Congratulations! News in UIC Today

08/2016: Dr. Xu joins the editorial board of Scientific Reports, a journal from Nature Publishing Group.

06/2016: Dr. Xu is part of a team led by Dr. Didem Ozevin to receive a $304,997 grant from the DoD/US Army Technology Integration program entitled “C-Mode Scanning Acoustic Microscope for Understanding Fundamentals of Failure in Military Relevant Materials.”

05/2016: Andrea de Vellis, Lorenzo d’angelo, Tiantian Ma and Roberto Preite have successfully defended their theses  and will receive their Master’s degrees. Congratulations to them!

04/2016: Our senior design team (Evan Hosman, Abrarrudin Mohammed, Jacob Romme, and Rohan Shah) won the 2nd place prize (Mechanical Process Category) in the College of Engineering EXPO–Senior Design Competition for their project “Liquid Metal 3D Printer”. Congratulations!

03/2016: Dr. Xu (with PI Dr. Yayue Pan) has received a grant from NSF for the project “Layerless Additive Manufacturing of 3D Objects with Wide Solid Cross Sections”.  The total awarded amount is $295,310.

02/2016: Our PhD student Yang Lin has been awarded a research grant from Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid program at the amount of $500. The Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research program has a highly competitive application process and only approximately 15% of applicants receive any level of funding. The fund will support Yang for his project “Paper-based green bio-battery for portable electrics”.

10/2015: Dr. Xu joins the editorial board of “Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering”.

08/2015: Yang Lin joins the lab as a PhD student. Welcome!

08/2015: Alireza Ahmadian Yazdi joins the lab as a PhD student. He received a Faydor L. Litvin Fellowship from the UIC MIE department. Welcome and congratulations!

04/2015: Dr. Xu received a COE Annual Fund ($24,900) for acquiring microfluidics equipment.

04/2015: Our PhD student Dmitry Gritsenko has been awarded a research grant from Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid program at the amount of $1,000.  Sigma Xi, the Scientific Resarch Society, is an international, multidisciplinary research society founded in 1886.  Over the course of the Society’s distinguished history, more than 200 members have won the Nobel Prize including Albert Einstein. The Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research program has a highly competitive application process and only approximately 17% of applicants receive any level of funding. The fund will support Dmitry for exploring oscillating-bubble-based acoustic lasers.

03/2015: Our paper “Fabrication of SERS-Active Substrates Using Silver Nanofilm-Coated Porous Anodic Aluminum Oxide for Detection of Antibiotics” has been selected as a cover article by Journal of Food Science.

03/2015: Dr. Xu received a Curriculum and Instruction Grant (CIG) from UIC Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) in the amount of $11,416. This grant will be used to develop a new hands-on laboratory to teach microfluidics concepts to undergraduate students at UIC.

03/2015: Dr. Xu becomes a UIC Honors College faculty fellow.

09/2014: Dmitry Gritsenko joins the lab as a PhD student. Welcome!

08/2014: Leily Majidi joins the lab as a PhD student. Welcome!

08/2014: Our paper “A. Hashmi and J. Xu, On the quantification of mixing in microfluidics” has been selected as a cover article by Journal of Laboratory Automation. It has also been featured by a podcast and an author spotlight by the journal.

08/2014: Xu research group has moved to UIC.

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05/2014: Dr. Xu has received another Amazon grant of $8,000 for using cloud for molecular dynamics simulations.

05/2014: Ali Hashmi has received his Master’s degree and will be continuing his PhD study at Stanford University. Congratulations!

01/2014: Dr. Xu has received another Amazon grant of $1,600 for using cloud in classroom to teach molecular dynamics simulations.

08/2013: Ali Hashmi recieved another NSF travel award for attending the ASME IMECE Micro Nano technology forum. This year the conference will held in San Diego. Congratulations!

06/3013: A high school students team consisting of Matthew Leong, Benjamin Bolte and Dexter Corlett from Columbia River High School has joined the lab for a summer project. Welcome!

06/3013: Undergraduate students Thomas Foster (UW) and Justin Lim (WSU Pullman) has joined the lab for summer intern. Welcome.

05/2013: Drs. Dimitrov, Xu and Grigar received $4.5k from WSUV minigrant for project “iCheM: Interactive Chemistry Module”.

05/2013: Yuhao Xu and Garrett Heiman successfully defended their theses. Congratulations!

04/2013: Ali Hashmi won the WSUV Research Showcase Award (gradudate level) and Gabriel Dunham won the WSUV Research Showcase Award (undergraduate level). This time our lab has received 1/3 of the total awards given. Congratulations to both of them!

01/2013: Dr. Xu has been elected a member of the Global Young Academy.

12/2012: Our research has been featured in “Real Clear Science”, see Scientists Levitate Cart with Water Vapor.

12/2012: Graduate student Ali Hashmi won the Best Presentation Award at the ASME-IMECE Microfludics Symposium. Congratulations!

11/2012: Ali, Garrett and Yuhao received Graduate Travel Grants from WSU Vancouver to support their trips to ASME IMECE conference in Houston.

11/2012: Paul Osborne received Undergraduate Travel Grant from WSU Vancouver to support his trip to ASME undergrate expo and competition in Houston.

09/2012: Dr. Xu received the Tony B. Academic Travel Award.

09/2012: Undergraduates Tracy Larson, Zakiyy Rahman and Jayred Modin joined the lab. Welcome!

08/2012: Dr. Xu is appointed as an adjunct assistant professor by the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, WSU Pullman. http://www.chebe.wsu.edu/Faculty/JieXu.html

08/2012: Ali Hashmi recieved an NSF travel award for attending the ASME IMECE Micro Nano technology forum in Houston. Congratulations!

06/2012: High school student Peter Lu from Mountain View High School has joined the lab for a summer project. Welcome!

06/2012: Dr. Xu received $10K research fund from TeloVISION to develop microfluidic filters. see WSU news

06/2012: We have published a review paper on oscilating bubbles in Lab on a Chip (IF:6.5). Ali Hashmi is the first author. Congratulations!

06/2012: Abdullah Bajwa from Pakistan joined the lab as a visiting student. Welcome!

06/2012: Undergraduate student Elizabeth Leong from Whitman College joined the lab for a summer project. Welcome!

06/2012: High school student Matthew Leong from Columbia River High School has joined the lab for a summer project. Welcome!

05/2012: Gabriel Dunham joined the lab. Welcome!

05/2012: Dr. Xu received $3.5K research grant from WSU Vancouver Faculty Research Mini-Grant Program.

05/2012: Gan Yu successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations!

05/2012: Undergraduate student Jeremy Nelson joined the lab for summer research. Welcome.

04/2012: Benjamin Coder won the WSUV Research Showcase award. Congratulations!

04/2012: Our undergraduate researcher Benjamin Coder, and his teammates Grant Micheal, Paul Osborne and Jonathon Spafford, has been awarded a research grant from Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid program.  Sigma Xi, the Scientific Resarch Society, is an international, multidisciplinary research society founded in 1886.  Over the course of the Society’s distinguished history, more than 200 members have won the Nobel Prize including Albert Einstein. The Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research program has a highly competitive application process and only approximately 20% of applicants receive any level of funding. The $500 fund will support Ben for a novel heat transfer related project. See Sigma Xi news.

04/2012: Nan Lei successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations!

03/2012: Undergraduate researcher Marina Reilly-Collette is awarded 2012 WSUV Distinguished Woman of the Year. This award honors women who have inspired, mentored and empowered other. Congratulations! see WSU news

03/2012: Undergraduate Paul Ryan joined the lab. Welcome!

02/2012: Romain Estivals from France joined the lab as a visiting student. Welcome!

01/2012: Dr. Hyuck Jin Kwon joined the lab as a postdoc researcher. Welcome!

01/2012: Undergraduate students Michael Hwang, Steven Rigby, Adam Strauss and Gordon Yip joined the lab. Welcome!

12/2011: Dr. Xu received another $7,500 AWS research grant from Amazon to continue current reserch that involves Cloud computing.

11/2011: Our work is featured in the newspaper Columbian. Link.

10/2011: Both Gan and Nan have received a $750 Graduate Travel Grant each from WSU Vancouver to support their presentations in ASME IMECE 2011 conference in Denver. Congratulations!

10/2011: Our undergrad researchers Cedric and Mark published their work in Soft Matter (IF: 4.46) as co-first authors. Congratulations.

09/2011: Undergraduate student Jarod Wilder form Biology department joined the lab. Welcome!

09/2011: Dr. Xu received three complimentary registration for his students to attend MicroTAS conference, which is the top conference in microfluidics field.

08/2011: Nan and Gan published their papers in Measurement Science and Technology (IF: 1.35), and Soft Matter (IF: 4.46), respectively. Congratulations.

08/2011: Undergraduate students Benjamin Coder, Grant Michael, Ly Ho and Miguel Gonzalez joined the lab. Welcome!

08/2011: Graduate students Garrett Heiman and Yuhao Xu joined the lab. Welcome!

07/2011: Dr. Xu received DARPA Young Faculty Award. This award (~$200K) will support Dr. Xu’s research on developing a novel “ear-on-a-chip” microfluidic system. The DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) program identifies and engages rising research stars in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic institutions and introduces them to DoD needs. See WSU newsWSU professor helps fight hearing loss and DARPA news

06/2011: Abhishek Raol from Sunset High School joined the lab for summer interner. Welcome!

05/2011: Helena Scheuble was selected by Google Summer of Code Program. Congratulations! Link

05/2011: Dr. Xu hosted a Mechanical Engineering workshop for the WSUV MOSAIC conference.

05/2011: Dr. Xu received ~$5K research grant from WSU Vancouver Faculty Research Mini-Grant Program.

05/2011: Thomas Barnett joined the lab for summer research. Welcome!

05/2011: Ali Hashmi from Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, Pakistan, joined the lab as a remote student. Welcome!

04/2011: Marina Collette joined the lab. Welcome!

02/2011: Dr. Xu has been named to the national New Faces of Engineering Program. See it on WSU Today: Professor earns honors for world-changing work and on National Engineers Week.

02/2011: Dale Bozarth joined the lab for an undergraduate research project. Welcome!

01/2011: Dr. Xu was invited as a distinguished speaker to the Sharp Laboratories of America Technology and Innovation Colloquium.

01/2011: Helena Scheuble joined the lab for an undergraduate interdisciplinary research project (in collaboration with Dr. David Chiu). Welcome!

01/2011: Lawrence Brocha joined the lab for an undergraduate research project. Welcome!

12/2010: Dr. Xu received $7,500 AWS research grant from Amazon for Cloud Computing of Molecular Dynamics Simulation using Amazon’s compute power and storage infrastructure.

11/2010: Dr. Xu and co-authors won a honorable mention for best poster award at IMECE 2010 Micro & Nano Technology Poster Forum.

11/2010: Brandon Graser joined the lab for an undergraduate research project. Welcome!

11/2010: Dr. Xu received two research funds ($1,300 in total) from WSUV Undergraduate Research Mini-Grant Program (UR-MGP) for undergraduate research in the Microfluidics lab.

11/2010: Cedric Aberle joined the lab for an undergraduate research project. Welcome!

10/2010: Microfluidics lab hosted a MESA workshop for high school students. Thanks Nan for developing two Fluids Engineering sessions for this workshop!

10/2010: Mark Lewis joined the lab for an undergraduate research project. Welcome!

10/2010: Nan received $445 Graduate Travel Grant from WSU Vancouver and $100 match from ENCS. Congratulations!

08/2010: Graduate students Nan Lei and Gan Yu joined the lab. Welcome!

08/2010: Dr. Jie Xu joined WSU Vancouver and founded Microfludics Laboratory.