Zhen (Jen) Liu
zhenjen.liu@utdallas.edu
Phone: +1 (972) 883-5124
Mail Box:
Office: ECSW 3.150H
800 West Campbell Rd.
Mailstop:
Richardson, TX 75080-3021
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Education
PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Rice University, 2024
MS, Power Engineering and Engineering Thermophysics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 2019
BS, Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 2016
Research Interests:
Interfacial phenomena, Surface engineering, Heat transfer, Energy and fluids
Five Most Recent Journal Publications, Book Chapters, and Books
- A. Rajappan, Z. Liu, T.F. Yap, R.M. Rasheed, D.J. Preston, “Foam-enabled Fluidics for Embedded Sensing and Control in Soft Robots,” Advanced Functional Materials, 2403379, 2024.
- Z. Liu, T.F. Yap, A. Rajappan, R.A. Shveda, R.M. Rasheed, D.J. Preston, “Mitigating Contamination with Nanostructure-Enabled Ultraclean Storage,” Nano Letters, 23 (14), 2023.
- T.F. Yap, Z. Liu, A. Rajappan, T.J. Shimokusu, D.J. Preston, “Necrobotics: Biotic Materials as Ready-to-Use Actuators,” Advanced Science, 2201174, 2022.
- Z. Liu, Y. Song, A. Rajappan, E.N. Wang, D.J. Preston “Temporal Evolution of Surface Contamination under Ultra-high Vacuum,” Langmuir, 38 (3), 2022.
- Z. Liu, D.J. Preston, “Enhanced Condensation for Improved Energy Efficiency,” Joule 3 (5), 2019.
Major Honors and Awards
- Rice MECH Research Excellence Award (2024)
- The Ig Nobel Prize in Mechanical Engineering (2023)
- Micro Flow and Interfacial Phenomena Conference Travel Award (2023 and 2022)
- XJTU Graduate Freshman Outstanding Scholarship (top 1% across the university, 2016)