Bioengineering expert honored by ASME
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has named a bioengineering associate professor from The University of Texas at Arlington as a fellow.
The ASME recognized Jun Liao for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of structural-functional mechanisms of heart valves, cardiac tissues and other soft tissues.
“This is an unexpected honor,” Liao said. “As a biomechanist and bioengineer, I am happy to be recognized for our work, built together with important contributions from my collaborators, graduate students and undergraduate researchers. The supportive culture of the Bioengineering Department, the College of Engineering and the University administration is a key factor in my success, and I share this honor with all involved.”
Liao is an expert in tissue biomechanics and bioengineering, with interests in heart valves, cardiac muscle and many other soft tissues. His research focus is to better understand both the role of biomechanics in maintaining optimal tissue performance in physiological conditions and of biomechanical abnormality in diseased conditions, aiming to improving tissue replacement, repair and medical interventions.
Liao has published 90 peer-reviewed journal papers, 166 conference presentations/posters, nine book chapters and two books, Advances in Heart Valve Biomechanics and Advances in Biological Tissue Biomechanics. He is also a fellow of the American Heart Association.
Since joining UTA in 2017, he has secured nearly $1.3 million in research and development funds from the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. His biomechanical expertise has also added a multidisciplinary dimension to productive, NIH-funded projects led by UTA bioengineering Professors Yi Hong, Kytai Nguyen and Liping Tang and UT Southwestern Professor Philippe Zimmern.
The honor is well-deserved and shows the quality of faculty in UTA’s Bioengineering Department, said Michael Cho, its chair.
“Dr. Liao’s contributions in the area of tissue biomechanics are wide-ranging and have had a major impact in the potential treatment and prevention of cardiac disease and other ailments,” Cho said. “To be recognized by one’s peers is a great honor, and he deserves these accolades.”
Liao is the eighth current UTA faculty member to be named a fellow of ASME and the first from the Bioengineering Department. The others are Ashfaq Adnan, Dereje Agonafer, Abdolhossein Haji-Sheikh, Kent Lawrence, Teik C. Lim, Frank Lu and Kenneth Reifsnider, all from the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department.
ASME serves a wide-ranging engineering community through quality learning, the development of codes and standards, certifications, research, conferences and publications, government relations, and other forms of outreach. Established in 1880, it has 105,109 members worldwide. More than 3,000 members have been named fellows of the society, or about 3% of the total.
- Written by Jeremy Agor, College of Engineering