This award recognized Prof. Shu Yang’s exceptional ability to combine materials synthesis, experimental creativity, and deep mechanical understanding to address fundamental scientific questions while enabling real-world applications to control adhesion, friction, and contact behavior. Specifically, Prof. Yang has made pioneering contributions to the understanding and application of surface and interfacial phenomena in soft materials. Read … Read more

When a knot lets go, it doesn’t just fall apart. It snaps. The Yang lab shows that a millimeter-sized, knotted soft robot can leap meters into the air, flipping mid-flight, spinning like a propeller. Adding a wing extends that control into the air. The robot can curves back toward its starting point, like a boomerang … Read more

Tackling large socio-environmental issues like climate change and global freshwater scarcity, Shu Yang’s team eyes for natural solutions. Imitating two unlikely products of nature: raspberries and sunflowers, they introduces a scalable, solar-driven water harvesting device that collects moisture from the air. Read more

Penn engineers, materials scientists, and designers have developed a 3D-printed concrete solution based on diatomaceous earth that has enhanced carbon capture, is stronger, and uses fewer materials like cement. Read more

A multidisciplinary team of researchers have successfully developed a cutting-edge method to 3D print cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers (CLCEs), opening the door to dynamic, color-changing materials that can respond to mechanical stress. Read more

Shu Yang is named as one of National Geographic’s 33 Extraordinary Changemakers who are creating a better future for the planet. Yang is recognized for her pioneering work in biomimicry, a field dedicated to finding innovative solutions to global problems by studying and emulating patterns in the natural world. Read more