Yuebing Zheng, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering, has been selected to receive an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program (YIP) award for a project titled “Reconfigurable Multiband Metasurfaces and Devices with Atomic-Layer Materials.” The award totals more than $500,000 over three years.
The Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Young Investigator Program seeks to identify and support tenure-track academic scientists and engineers who show exceptional promise for doing creative research. The program's objectives are to attract outstanding university faculty members to the Department of Navy's research program, to support their research and to encourage their teaching and research careers.
Zheng is one of 33 scientists selected from among 360 applicants to receive the YIP award.
Zheng’s lab will develop a new class of reconfigurable multiband metasurfaces and devices (i.e., photodetectors, modulators and sensors) and will elucidate working principles of the devices. Ultimately, the performance of the devices Zheng has proposed could have enormous impact on continued Naval communications and sensing, and warfighter protection.
“This exclusive award will enable Zheng to pursue life-changing innovation in nanotechnology,” said Rick Neptune, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “His receipt of the ONR Young Investigator award, along with his other impressive accomplishments, is a testament to his outstanding talent. We are excited to see the outcomes of his research.”
Zheng’s research group innovates optical nanotechnologies to help address current challenges in health, energy, manufacturing and national security. Current research is categorized into three related topic areas: optical manipulation and assembly, molecular plasmonics, and plasmofluidic lab on a chip.
Zheng received his Ph.D. in engineering science and mechanics from Pennsylvania State University. He previously received the 2014 Beckman Young Investigator Award and the 2015 3M Nontenured Faculty Award.
