Assistant Professor X. Shelly Zhang has been selected as the recipient of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director's Fellowship Award, a selective award given to top performers in the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) pool. As a recipient of the Director’s Fellowship, she receives an additional third year of funding to continue her DARPA research. The additional third year will provide $500,000 in funding, bringing the total funding for the project over three years to $1,000,000.
Zhang’s YFA project seeks to create biomaterials with precisely programmed multi-modal responses under remote actuation, functioning as wireless robots to accelerate tissue regeneration and injury repair. The goal is being achieved by developing novel multiphysics topology optimization, rigorous mechanics-based modeling, and hybrid manufacturing techniques. The third year will aim at validating and improving the performance of wireless biomaterials for tissue repair in vivo as well as enabling additional wireless functionalities.
Zhang joined the CEE at Illinois faculty in 2019, where her research interests are in the general areas of topology optimization, programmable multi-functional metamaterials, additive manufacturing, data-driven models, multi-scale materials and structures, and 3D/4D printing. She directs the MISSION Laboratory (MultI-functional Structures and Systems Design Optimization).
She holds an affiliate appointment in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering and is a Faculty Fellow with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Among her honors, Zhang is the recipient of the 2021 National Science Foundation CAREER award, 2022 DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2023 Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator award, the 2022 Journal of Applied Mechanics Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the 2024 EMI Leonardo da Vinci Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers.