October 31, 2022

photo of nanshu luNanshu Lu, Frank and Kay Reese Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, has been elected a fellow member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for “inventing wearable e-tattoos for biometric sensing and soft e-skins for soft robots to gain human-like sensations.” Fellows are selected for their exceptional achievements in engineering and contributions to their field and to ASME. Only approximately 4% of ASME members are fellows, making the distinction among the highest in the society.

Lu leads an I3 (innovative, interdisciplinary, and inclusive) research group at UT Austin to advance the mechanics, materials, manufacture and bio-integration of soft electronics. Her research vision is that future humans will be more like robots (i.e., more digital, computational, cyber, etc.) whereas robots will be more like humans (i.e., softer, more dexterous, artificially intelligent, etc.). Her group has been pushing the following frontiers: 1) thin film mechanics of soft electronics; 2) nano and 2D materials; 3) design and manufacture of soft electronics; 4) bio-electronics interface; and 5) soft human-integrated electronic systems. Recent media highlights of her work include the interview with National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the EML webinar, and the first-ever hybrid wearable medical sensor that withstands pressure with only a minimal loss in sensitivity.

Lu has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles with more than 20,000 citations according to Google Scholar so far. She has two issued and six pending patents. She has presented more than 170 invited talks at peer institutes and major conferences, including three times at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Frontier of Engineering (FoE) symposia, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Emerging Leaders Forum, the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) annual conference, among others.

She is the recipient of several awards, including the most recent 2022 Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award from the Applied Mechanics Division of ASME, the MIT Technology Review 35 under 35 (TR 35), the NetExplo Grand Prix, NSF CAREER award, Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Awards, the 3M Nontenured Faculty Award, and the iCANx/ACS Nano inaugural Rising Star lectureship.

Lu currently serves as the associate editor of Nano Letters and Journal of Applied Mechanics. She is a senior member of IEEE and has been named a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher since 2020. Lu also holds courtesy appointments in UT Austin’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Texas Materials Institute.

Learn more about Lu’s research on the Lu Research Group website.