The Chen group at Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth (http://sites.dartmouth.edu/zichen/) is currently looking for prospective PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting students/researchers.
Dr. Zi Chen received his PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and is the first Society in Science-Branco Weiss fellow (http://www.society-in-science.org/zi-chen.html) from China. His research interests range from solid mechanics and material science to biomechanics and mechanobiology, covering such diverse topics as mechanical instabilities of materials, energy harvesting, stretchable electronics, biomimetic materials/devices, nanofabrication (e.g., nanowires, nanoribbons, and grapheme sheets), mechanics of morphogenesis in biological systems, cell biomechanics (e.g., epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and cancer cell migration), and mechanics of DNA structures. Dr. Chen’s research has been supported by Society in Science-Branco Weiss fellowship and National Institute of Health. Dr. Chen has published more than 26 papers in peer-reviewed journals including Physical Review Letters, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Applied Physics Letters, Soft Matter, Nanoscale, Europhysics Letters, Physical Review B, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solid, and Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A. His publications have been featured on the cover of Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Applied Physics Letters, Birth Defects Research Part C: Embryo Today, highlighted in Science, and selected as EPL Highlights of the year.

An ideal candidate should have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Mechanics, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, Biology, Material Science or any related field, with outstanding academic records (preferable with research publications). Prof. Chen strives to provide a stimulating environment with exciting and frontier research topics and excellent colleagues where the candidates can be trained to become outstanding independent researchers, with sufficient freedom to explore their own ideas while working on well-designed projects.
Outstanding candidate interested in the opening should send the full CV, GRE scores, transcripts, and the contact information of 2-3 references to Zi.Chen@Dartmouth.edu. The positions remain open until filled. Candidates are also encouraged to explore fellowship opportunities such as the PhD innovation fellowship at Dartmouth (http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/academics/graduate/innovation/) or another other fellowships, such as the CSC fellowship, which, if granted, will significantly increase the chance of getting admitted. Note that Dartmouth is establishing a joint funding program with CSC (CSC-Dartmouth joint funding program) for supporting graduate students from China. Applicants should indicated this joint program in their applications in order to increase the chance of getting funded. Candidates with research interests in other areas are also encouraged to contact the rest of the faculty members at Thayer School of Engineering (http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/people/faculty/core) to explore the possibility of joining the graduate program here.
Postdoctoral fellows with expertise in biology (developmental biology or cell biology), biomedical engineering, biomechanics, and/or engineering mechanics are preferred. Postdoctoral candidates should also send up to three representative publications to be considered. Dartmouth College is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer with a strong commitment to diversity that provides competitive salary with health benefits.
Example Research Projects for the postdoctoral positions:
Mechanics of morphogenesis in embryonic development
The morphogenesis (generation of biological form) in embryos brings forth more challenges in mechanics that are closely related to preventing and treating cognitive diseases. During development, the tissues bend, fold, and/or twist and mechanical cues are believed to be conveying important information necessary for normal development. Understanding the role of mechanical stresses and strains is key to deciphering morphogenesis in development. Our group works on the mechanics of morphogenesis in brain and heart development to address the fundamental physical mechanisms at play in both normal development and in the case of congenital neurological and heart defects, the understanding of which will potentially lead to the treatment or prevention of such defects. This research will feature a combination of biological experiments and numerical simulations.
Epithelial layer jamming in collective cancer cell migration
Breast cancer is representative of the wider class of cancers of epithelial origin (carcinomas) that account for the vast majority of cancers and cancer deaths. If cancer cells did not migrate and instead just stayed put, then cancer in most instances would be a more manageable disease. But cancer cells do migrate, and that migration accounts for much of cancer’s morbidity and mortality. Unfortunately, we understand little about how, why, and when this aberrant cellular migration plays out. Cancer cells tend to migrate not as individual units but rather as a cellular collective in multicellular strings, ducts, strands and clusters.
It is proposed that a controlling factor in the collective cellular migration is a newly discovered phenomenon called "cell jamming." Do epithelial cells in some circumstances behave in one way (jammed, solid-like and aggregated with little possibility of mutual cell rearrangement, escape or invasion), while in other circumstances they behave in another (unjammed, fluid-like, disaggregated and invasive)? In collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey Fredberg at Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Muhammad Zaman at Boston University, we will address this question in selected breast cancer cell lines, in a variety of extracellular environments that mimic native environments, and across graded stages of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Data derived from a comprehensive suite of novel experimental probes — cellular motions, traction stresses, intercellular stresses and cellular shapes — will be critically examined through the lens of a novel quantitative theory of cell jamming.


About Dartmouth College:
Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League research university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, ranked the 11th among all national universities by US News in 2015 and 2016. Dartmouth graduates have the highest median salary, $134,000, 10-20 years out of college. The Princeton Review ranked Dartmouth third in its "Quality of Life" category, and sixth for having the "Happiest Students." CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007. Hanover was ranked as the best college town in 2014 (http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/best-college-towns/). Dartmouth is also well known for the outdoor activities; the Outing Club – the oldest and largest collegiate outing club in the country – is the most popular student organization at Dartmouth, offering outdoor activities, expeditions, gear rentals and courses.
Dartmouth has one of the oldest professional schools of engineering (Thayer School of Engineering) in the country, which features a unified department of engineering sciences that fosters cross-disciplinary innovation in research and teaching. Graduate programs include the Master of Engineering Management (MEM), MS, PhD, dual degrees with The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and the nation's first PhD Innovation Program. Dartmouth also has a top-ranked Geisel School of Medicine and an extramurally funded Norris Cotton Cancer Center.
Starting from 2016, Thayer School of Engineering will offer a new graduate program, Master of Engineering (M.Eng)—for biomedical engineers already in the profession seeking to add depth to their knowledge or acquire new specialized knowledge, with the option of transferring to the MS or PhD program.