My general scope of the research has been focused on the development of advanced manufacturing of hard and soft functional materials built from nanostructured materials through structure-by-design and function-by-design approaches through a) seeking the fundamental understanding of how energy is being stored, converted, transferred, transported in nano- and meso-structures, and energy relaxation dynamics; b) exploring new and innovative ways to tailor, manipulate, and perhaps control energy relaxation processes and transfer pathways through nanostructure design and functionalization and c) developing effective techniques to interrogate nanostructured materials and integrate nanomaterials into the much needed devices and sensors; d) cultivating micro- and nano-fluidic technology for electrical and spectral sensing in biochemical and biomedical applications; e) advancing the current electrospinning and electrospray technology with biocompatible and biodegradable synthetic and natural polymers in biomedical applications..

During the past a few years, I have invested large amount of my research team effort to use natural and synthetic polymers as the building blocks for advanced functional materials fabrication. These materials have clear potential to improve biocompatibility, provide controlled biodegradation and release of active agents from carriers. These polymers are not only important for basic and applied research and biomedical engineering, but also serve as the prototypes to inform the fabrication of well-controlled structures at the nano- and micro-scales. The approach is to learn the design rules from basic materials to well-controlled physical and chemical structures and properties, and then to produce new structures for the evaluation of functionality and potential biomedical applications.

Over the years, I have established aboard based research collaboration with both minority and major research institutions to tackle bigger, high impact and transformative problems. I have been one of the a few major drivers participated in minority and under-represented populations. Fisk – Vanderbilt MS-to-PhD program alone, my group alone has produce