News

October 2026

🎤 SES 2026 Symposium on Mechanobiology and Biomaterial Innovation

Together with Drs. Farid Alisafaei, Grace X. Gu, and Guy Genin, we co-organized SES 2026 Symposium 2.6, Experimental and Computational Methods in Mechanobiology and Biomaterial Innovation. Over 2.5 days, the symposium brought together 43 talks on advances in mechanobiology, biomanufacturing, and biomaterial innovation.

🎉 Our first New and Notable in Biophysical Journal

Congratulations to Elif! Our New and Notable, “Cell geometry and mechanics slow Gaucher red blood cells,” has been published in Biophysical Journal. DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2026.10.003

July 2026

🎉 Celebrating Jenna’s 10-week REU!

We celebrated the successful completion of Jenna Tran’s 10-week REU together with Prof. Payton and Prof. Stewart’s groups! During the REU, Jenna made outstanding contributions to ML for architected oil–water filter design! (And we love Prof. Payton’s hat. 🎩)

🖨️ We started bioprinter training!

Our lab space is ready! Our lab began training on the CELLINK Bio X6 bioprinter — an exciting step forward as we advance our work in biomanufacturing and mechanobiology!

📘 Our Soft Matter paper is featured on the Front Cover!

Our paper, “Competing Roles of Aggregation and Interfacial Interactions in Sustainable Protein/Cellulose Nanocrystal-Reinforced Soft Composites,” has been selected as a Front Cover of Soft Matter. DOI: 10.1039/d6sm00329j

June 2026

📰 Our research highlighted by the University of Cincinnati

UC News featured our Nature Materials review and nanomaterials research in the article “How do you study the world’s smallest materials?”.

🏆 Prof. Jin attends USNC/TAM 2026 in Pasadena

Prof. Jin attended the 20th U.S. National Congress on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNC/TAM 2026) in Pasadena, CA, and gave a talk titled “Neural Operators Assisted Design of Nano-Bio-Architected Materials with Targeted Mechanical Behaviors.” He also received the American Academy of Mechanics Fellowship.

📄 Our Review in Nature Materials has been published!

Our review, “In situ mechanical characterization of functional and architected materials,” has been published in Nature Materials. DOI: 10.1038/s41563-026-02601-x

🎤 Prof. Jin presents at the Society for Experimental Mechanics Annual Conference

Prof. Jin attended the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM) Annual Conference and presented our work, “In situ Nanomechanical Characterization and Design of Nano-Bio-Architectures using Neural Operators,” at the Experimental Mechanics Symposium.

May 2026

🏆 Prof. Jin awarded American Academy of Mechanics Fellowship

Prof. Jin has been awarded the prestigious Fellowship from the American Academy of Mechanics to present at USNC/TAM 2026 in Pasadena!

April 2026

🎤 Prof. Jin gave the William Maxwell Reed Seminar at the University of Kentucky

Invited by Prof. Xingsheng Sun, Prof. Jin presented the William Maxwell Reed Seminar at the University of Kentucky.

January 2026

🔬 Lab Opening at University of Cincinnati

Dr. Hanxun Jin officially joins the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at the University of Cincinnati as an Assistant Professor. Welcome to the NanoBioMech Lab! Our new website is now live. The lab is actively recruiting PhD students and visiting scholars for Spring 2026 and Fall 2026. Learn more about openings →