Associate Professor
214 Link Hall
tzhang48@syr.edu
315.443.2969
Degree(s):
- Ph.D. Brown University, 2015
- M.S. Dalian University of Technology, 2010
- B.S. Dalian University of Technology, 2007
Lab/ Center Affiliation:
BioInspired Institute
Areas of Expertise:
- Solid mechanics
- Smart materials
- Mechanics of morphing
- Mechanics of instabilities
- Mechanics of interfaces
Dr. Zhang’s group’s research goal is to solve grand challenges where mechanics can play an important role and harness mechanics as an enabling tool to design smart materials and structures for future sustainability. Built on the core strength of mechanics, my group actively engages in highly interdisciplinary works, such as food design, smart materials, and biofilms. Examples of ongoing projects include:
- Harnessing instabilities and active materials to design reconfigurable structures
- Bio-inspired hybrid liquid and solid systems enabled by elasto-capillary and hygro-mechanical couplings
- Mechanics guided shape-changing food
- Mechanics of smart magnetic materials and structures
The fundamental mechanics understanding could also provide design principles of robotics and biomedical devices and establish virtual platforms for simulating and controlling them, especially for those with highly nonlinear deformation in complicated working environments (e.g., endovascular neurosurgery and smart catheters).
Honors and Awards:
- 2021 Soft Matter Emerging Investigator
- 2019 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, National Science Foundation
- 2015 Outstanding thesis, Brown University’s School of Engineering
Selected Publications:
- Gabriel Alkuino, and Teng Zhang. Physics-based discrete models for magneto-mechanical metamaterials. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids (2024): 105759.
- Guangchao Wan, Samuel J. Avis, Zizheng Wang, Xueju Wang, Halim Kusumaatmaja, and Teng Zhang. Finding transition state and minimum energy path of bistable elastic continua through energy landscape explorations. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 183 (2024): 105503.
- Danli Luo, Aditi Maheshwari, Andreea Danielescu, Jiaji Li, Yue Yang, Ye Tao, Lingyun Sun Guanyun Wang, Shu Yang, Teng Zhang, Lining Yao. Autonomous self-burying seed carriers for aerial seeding. Nature 614, no. 7948 (2023): 463-470.
- Ye Tao, Yi-Chin Lee, Haolin Liu, Xiaoxiao Zhang, Jianxun Cui, Catherine Mondoa, Mahnoush Babaei, Jasio Santillan, Guanyun Wang, Danli Luo, Di Liu, Humphrey Yang, Youngwook Do, Lingyun Sun, Wen Wang, Teng Zhang, and Lining Yao. Morphing Pasta and Beyond. Science Advances 7, no. 19 (2021): eabf4098.
- Oleh Tovkach, Junbo Chen, Monica M. Ripp, Teng Zhang, Joseph D. Paulsen, and Benny Davidovitch. Mesoscale structure of wrinkle patterns and defect-proliferated liquid crystalline phases. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 8 (2020): 3938-3943.