The Computational Soft Matter Group at HKUST
PI: Rui Zhang
Rui is a physicist by training, interested in soft matter and specialized in computational modeling. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Prior to joining HKUST as a PI, he worked with Professor Juan de Pablo at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, where he had a successful collaboration with Professor Margaret Gardel's group in active liquid crystals. He pursued his PhD with Professor Joel Koplik in the Levich Institute and the Department of Physics at the City College of New York, where he focused on molecular dynamics simulations of nano-fluidic phenomena and collaborated with Professor Taehun Lee's group. Prior to his trip to the United States, he obtained a BS in Physics from Fudan University in China.
Members
Xinyu Wang
Postdoc Fellow (Feb 2021 - )
Email: xinyuwang[at]ust[dot]hk
Xinyu received her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from Southeast University in 2015 and 2021. She was a visiting student at the University of Pennsylvania from 2018 to 2020. Prior to joining HKUST, she used to work on origami and kirigami inspired metamaterials. She is currently studying liquid crystal elastomers.
Zhe Feng
Postdoc Fellow (Nov 2022 - ), joint with Prof. Tiezheng Qian in Math@HKUST.
Email: fengzhe[at]ust[dot]hk
Zhe received a B.S. degree in Space Science and Technology from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pusan National University in 2018. He then obtained a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from National University of Singapore in 2022. Before joining HKUST, his research focused on the linear instabilities and turbulence in electroconvective flows. His current work investigates the coherent flow induced by active viscoelastic fluids.
Yulu Huang
PhD Candidate (Aug 2020 - )
Email: yhuangek[at]connect[dot]ust[dot]hk
Yulu obtained a B.Sc. Degree in Engineering Mechanics in 2017, and M.S. Degree in Solid Mechanics (thesis: study on toughening mechanism of graphene/metal bio-inspired nanocomposites) in 2020, both from Beihang University, School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering. Prior to joining HKUST, her research was focused on understanding the mechanism of bio-inspired nanocomposites and polycrystalline materials through molecular dynamics simulation. Her current research involves simulations of bacterial suspensions and liquid crystals.
Weiqiang Wang
PhD Candidate (Aug 2020 - )
Email: wwangch[at]connect[dot]ust[dot]hk
2018.09-2020.07 Master student in the Department of Power Machinery and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology.
2014.09-2018.07 Bachelor student in the Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology.
Current research areas: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Active Liquid Crystals.
Shengzhu Yi
Graduate Student (Aug 2021 - ), joint with Prof. Qihuo Wei from SUSTech.
Email: syiaa[at]connect[dot]ust[dot]hk
Shengzhu obtained a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in School of Biomedical Engineering in 2021 (Thesis: Origami/Kirigami Inspired Magnetic Soft Robots for Biomedical Applications), both from Sun Yat-sen University. Before joining HKUST, his research was focused on designing and fabricating magnetic robots by origami/kirigami methods. His current research involves simulations of liquid crystal defects and liquid crystal elastomers.
Chung Wing (Kyle) Chan
MPhil Student (Sep 2021 - )
Email: cwchanbh[at]connect[dot]ust[dot]hk
Kyle received his BSc in physics from HKUST in 2021. Final year project worked on Monte Carlo simulation of Ising Model with Prof. Junwei Liu at HKUST. His current research interest is to use Langevin dynamics to study interactions of chiral active matter with complex environments.
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Haijie Ren
Graduate Student (Sep 2022 - )
Email: hrenae[at]connect[dot]ust[dot]hk
Haijie received his bachelor's degree in Energy and Power Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2018. Afterwards, he got his master's degree in Computational Mechanics from Ecole Centrale de Nantes in France in 2020, with a CSC Scholarship awarded by the Chinese government. Haijie joined the China State Key Laboratory of Aerodynamics as a Research Assistant in 2020. He has worked on computational fluid dynamics and machine learning. Haijie's current research interests are liquid crystals and machine learning.
Wentao Tang
Graduate Student (Sep 2022 - )
Email: wtangam[at]connect[dot]ust[dot]hk
Wentao obtained a bachelor's degree in School of Material Science and Engineering in 2022 from South China University of Science and Technology. Afterwards, he got his master's degree in department of material science under the guidance of Prof. Satoshi Aya from South China University of Science and Technology in 2022. His current research involves simulations of smectic liquid crystals and blue phase liquid crystals.
Zeyang Mou
Graduate Student (Sep 2022 - )
Email: zmou[at]connect[dot]ust[dot]hk
Zeyang received her bachelor’s degree from Sichuan University in 2019 and master’s degree from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2022. Prior to joining HKUST, her research was focused on the singularity of multiphase flow. She systematically studied singular jets after a water-in-oil compound drop impact on a solid surface based on a combination of experiments and simulations. She was a research assistant in Zhang’s group from 10.2021 to 01.2022, studying the surface torques and stresses on particles immersed in liquid crystals, which relates to her current research projects - active systems with interfaces.
Undergraduate students
Zheng Tien (Nick) Kang, UROP project (Sumer 2021), IRE (Sep/2021 - )
ZHANG Jiusi, Capstone project (Sep/2022 - )
LIU Zemin (Feb/2022 - )
Alumni
Chun Yin (Tony) Chau, IRE (Sep/2020 - Aug/2021), now MPhil at HKUST.
King Long Fong, IRE (Sep/2020 - Feb/2021), now in Germany.