VANCOUVER, Wash. 鈥 Jie Xu, assistant professor in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University Vancouver, was among 407 applicants and 39 of the nation鈥檚 brightest young scientists to receive grants totaling $11.7 million under this year鈥檚 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Young Faculty Award program.
The objective of the DARPA Young Faculty Award program is to identify and engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions at United States academic institutions, and expose them to Department of Defense needs as well as DARPA鈥檚 program development process. Applicants for YFA grants are required to be within five years of appointment to a tenure-track position at a U.S. university. 2011 award winners will receive approximately $300,000 to develop and validate their research ideas over a period of two years.
Xu received the 2011 Young Faculty Award for "Ear on a Chip: Microfluidics for Characterization and Control of Hair-Cell Sensing with Acoustic Stimuli.鈥
鈥溾楨ar on a Chip鈥 will be a microfluidic system containing live sensory cells to sense different frequencies of sound. Such an engineered system will be capable of obtaining electrical signals from acoustic stimuli, mimicking the function of an ear,鈥 said Xu.
In the short term, such a system can be used to study the mechanisms of hearing and hearing loss, and to screen drugs that might protect hearing or even cure hearing loss. In the long run, Xu hopes such a system can be developed into a prosthetic device for human beings or artificial sensory organs for future neuron-based devices, such as neural computers or robots.
The functional units of life are cells. Cells are usually micrometer sized with interfaces. Xu said he believes micro-interfacial sciences are the key to understanding life.
鈥淎s an engineer, I am not only interested in understanding nature, but also strive to learn from nature and create things that do not exist in nature to benefit human beings. The emerging micro/nano technologies provided us the ability to shape the world at micro/nano scale,鈥 said Xu.
Xu earned both his master鈥檚 degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree with distinction from Tsinghua University. Xu has authored more than 40 journal and conference publications, including one "Best Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering" paper in 2008. Xu participated on the editorial board of the Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal and has reviewed for several professional journals and conferences.
Awardees were recognized by DARPA in Arlington, Va. Oct. 25-26.
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MEDIA CONTACTS
Brenda Alling, Office of Marketing and Communications, 360-546-9601, brenda_alling@vancouver.wsu.edu
Pictured above: Regina Duga, DARPA director (left) and Tayo Akinwand, Young Faculty Award program manager (right) give the DARPA Young Faculty Award to Jie Xu, assistant professor in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University Vancouver.