Assistant Professor
Biography
Xinyue Liu joined the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Michigan State University as an assistant professor in 2023. Her research seeks to establish network topology as a design principle for soft materials, enabling programmable control over phase separation, fracture, optical transport, and molecular transport. Her lab integrates polymer physics, biomaterials, and nanocomposites to develop hydrogel optical fibers, mechanoresponsive biomaterials, and living-cell-laden matrices for applications spanning neural interfaces, regenerative medicine, biosensing, and sustainable biomanufacturing.
Education
- Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2021
- B.S., Polymer Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, 2015
Selected Publications
- Yijie Cheng, Shahd Alnasser, Akhiri Zannat, Zhenda He, Jiayi Zeng, Lenan Zhang, Sungmin Hong, Xinyue Liu, "Hydraulic Pressure-Programmed Molecular Transport in Tough Hydrogels", Advanced Science, e77159 (2026)
- Yijie Cheng, Mohamed A. Elhabet, Akhiri Zannat, Lenan Zhang, Xuanjie Wang, Yuchen Bian, Siyuan Rao, Yan Liu, Wei Liao, Yoichiro Tsurimaki, and Xinyue Liu, “Improving photosynthesis by scattering hydrogel fibers-enabled volumetric illumination”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123, e2536344123 (2026)
- Akhiri Zannat, Adolfo Lopez, Yijie Cheng, Jie Ma, Mitchell Delemeester, Shaoting Lin, Krishnamurthy Jayaraman, Xinyue Liu, Mechanical strain-regulated hydrogel biodegradation for biological scaffolds with programmable lifetime, Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 13, 10485 (2025)
- Yijie Cheng, Adolfo Lopez, Tsz Hung Wong, Darryl Francis, Emily England, Xinyue Liu, Revealing chain scission modes in variable polymer degradation kinetics, Newton, 1, 100168 (2025)
- Xinyue Liu, Siyuan Rao, Weixuan Chen, Kayla Felix, Jiahua Ni, Atharva Sahasrabudhe, Shaoting Lin, Qianbin Wang, Yuanyuan Liu, Zhigang He, Jingyi Xu, Sizhe Huang, Eunji Hong, Todd Yau, Polina Anikeeva, Xuanhe Zhao, Fatigue-resistant hydrogel fibers enable peripheral nerve optogenetics during locomotion, Nature Methods, 20, 1802 (2023)
MSU Scholar
Google Scholar
Awards
- NSF CAREER Award
- NIH Trailblazer Award for New and Early Stage Investigators
- ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award
- Journal of Materials Chemistry B Emerging Investigator
- Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia
News
Light-scattering technology boosts algae biomass production sixfold
Algae are increasingly being explored as sustainable “living factories” that can convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into renewable fuels, plastics, pharmaceuticals and other valuable products.
NSF CAREER Award supports research in tough, transparent biomaterials
Xinyue Liu, an assistant professor in the Michigan State University Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Research Spotlight: New fibers bring sunlight deeper, helping algae grow 6X faster
For decades, algae have been seen as a promising source of sustainable food, animal feed, biofuels and carbon-neutral materials. Compared with traditional crops and livestock, algae grow faster, require less land and freshwater and can directly convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into useful products. However, a major challenge has limited the widespread adoption of algae technologies for large-scale applications: light cannot penetrate deeply into the dense cultures used to grow algae resulting in slowed growth and increased production costs.
College welcomes academic and instructional experts
The Michigan State University College of Engineering welcomed 19 academic and instructional experts in 2023. The college currently has 238 tenure system faculty. Engineering Dean Leo Kempel said the recent additions help the College of Engineering at a time of unprecedented growth and innovation.
Xinyue Liu teams up with MIT, others to create nerve pain detecting tool
A Michigan State University College of Engineering researcher has found success with a new tool that helps identify the roots of nerve pain in the body while it's in motion.