Mechanical engineering alum Jifu Tan ’12G ’15PhD, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Binghamton University, has received funding through the National Science Foundations’ prestigious Faculty Early Career and Development program to support his research on predicting blood clot formation.
The NSF CAREER award will fund his work in developing multiscale computational models to better understand how clots grow and behave in different biological environments, with the goal of improving healthcare treatments and surgical planning.
Tan, who applies principles of fluid mechanics to biomedical challenges, describes his approach as interdisciplinary: “If you look from the outside, you’ll say, ‘This is the biology. This is the physics. This is the math.’ But if you look inside, we can find the same language to describe all of them,” he says in a BingUNews article. Tan’s research integrates machine learning, computational simulations, and experimental validation to create patient-specific models that could help predict clot-related risks and guide medical decisions.
At Lehigh, Tan (left) worked under the guidance of Yaling Liu (right), a professor of bioengineering, and focused his dissertation on the Lattice Boltzmann Method and its applications in soft matter. His background in computational fluid dynamics laid the foundation for his current work, which bridges mechanical engineering and biomedical research.
“Jifu was an outstanding researcher at Lehigh, applying advanced computational methods to complex biological systems,” says Liu. “He’s continuing to push the boundaries of computational modeling in biomedical engineering, and his NSF CAREER award is well deserved.”
Beyond his research, Tan is also dedicated to STEM education, developing tools to teach programming skills to engineering students and engaging in outreach efforts to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
“It is exciting to see one of our former Lehigh MEM students win a prestigious award like the NSF CAREER award,” says Arindam Banerjee, Paul B. Reinhold Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics and department chair. “I am excited to see his passion for STEM education and wish him all the success with his project and academic career.”
Read more about Tan’s work in the full BingUNews article.
