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Dr. Zi Chen (currently at Washington University in St. Louis and will start a tenure-track position at Dartmouth in 2015) is looking for prospective PhD students to start in 2015. Visiting or postdoctoral positions are also available for highly qualified candidates. A successful candidate will work on one or multiples of the following topics: mechanics of morphogenesis in plants/embryos, fast motion of plants (e.g., the Venus flytrap's rapid closure), mechanical self-assembly and instability of thin structures (e.g., DNA, plant tendrils, self-assembly of nanostructures, etc.), and bioinspired structures.
The candidate should have a BS or MS degree in Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Mechanics, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, or any related field, with outstanding academic records. Full financial support will be provided with competitive stipends and benefits. Dr. Zi Chen strives to provide a stimulating, interdisciplinary environment with exciting research topics and excellent colleagues where the candidates can be trained to become outstanding independent researchers, with sufficient freedom to explore their own ideas while working on well-designed projects.
Outstanding candidates (prospective PhD students, visiting students, or postdocs) interested in this position shall contact Dr. Zi Chen ASAP (http://taberlab.seas.wustl.edu/index.php/zi-chen) at chen.z@seas.wustl.edu, with the current CV and the contact information of at least two references. The positions remain open until filled.
Dr. Zi Chen is the first Society in Science – Branco Weiss Fellow from China and currently a Research Scientist in Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Chen received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University, and a PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University under Dr. Mikko Haataja and David J. Srolovitz. He was also a visiting scholar in Dr. Clifford Brangwynne’s group at Princeton. His postdoctoral supervisor is Dr. Larry A. Taber at Washington University.
Dr. Chen’s research interests cover such diverse topics as mechanical instabilities of materials, energy harvesting devices, stretchable electronics, biomimetic materials/devices, nanofabrication, mechanics of morphogenesis in biological systems, mechanical feedback mechanisms in biology, DNA mechanics, dislocation dynamics, and phase transitions. Dr. Chen has received a number of prestigious awards including Society in Science – Branco Weiss fellowship, Outstanding Paper Award at the ASME Global Congress on NanoEngineering for Medicine and Biology (NEMB), American Academy of Mechanics Founder's Award, MRS Graduate Student Award Silver Award, etc. He has published more than 20 papers in reputable journals such as Physical Review Letters, Nanoscale, Soft Matter, Applied Physics Letters, Europhysics Letters, Physical Review B, Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids, and Birth Defects Research Part C: Embryo Today. He is a also founding co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Postdoctoral Research, and an editorial board member of Journal of Applied Mechanical Engineering and Journal of Material Science & Engineering.
Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League research university located in Hanover, New Hampshire. The US News ranking is consistently in the top 10 category. The Princeton Review ranked Dartmouth third in its "Quality of Life" category, and sixth for having the "Happiest Students." CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007. Hanover was ranked as the best college town in 2014 (http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/best-college-towns/). Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth is by far the largest integrated School of Engineering in the United States. More noteworthy is the fact that the Thayer School of Engineering is going to double the size of faculty in the next decade. More information about Thayer School of Engineering can be found at http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/about/facts/.
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