Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Amy Shen joined the University of Washington Mechanical Engineering faculty in the fall of 2008. She earned her Ph.D in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a postdoc fellow at Harvard University and an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Shen’s research program concerns complex fluids and the processing of these fascinating materials to create morphologies and structures that can find application in the nanotechnology, biotechnology microelectronics, and energy related materials. Within this broad area, her laboratory takes advantage of the coupling of complex fluid microstructures with the spatial confinement that is possible by using microfluidic flow methods, to offer exquisite morphological control of soft materials. These strategies are being used to address problems in three specific areas: flow-induced nano-materials synthesis in confined geometries, biomimetics and bio-sensors/actuators, and bio-MEMS.