Brown University Assistant Professor Ian Wong has been chosen as one of 60 of the most promising early career engineers from the United States and Japan to participate in the National Academy of Engineering’s 2021 Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering (JAFOE) Symposium from June 23-25. The participants - from industry, academia, and government - were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations. The symposium will cover cutting-edge developments in four areas: Soft Robotics, Mitigating Sea Level Rise, Blockchain, and Machine Learning and AI for Mental Health. The event is intended to facilitate international and cross-disciplinary research collaboration, promote the transfer of new techniques and approaches across disparate engineering fields, and encourage the creation of a transpacific network of world-class engineers. JAFOE is carried out in cooperation with the Engineering Academy of Japan.
Wong engineers new miniaturized technologies based on biomaterials and microfluidics to investigate cancer cell invasion, drug resistance, and heterogeneity. He is also interested in the unconventional fabrication of soft and nano materials using self-assembly and 3D printing. He received a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University in 2010 and completed postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School from 2010-2013.