Professor
Co-director, Laboratory for Complex and Non-Newtonian Fluid Flow
Office: CHBE 209
Email: james.feng@ubc.ca
Website: https://secure.math.ubc.ca/~jfeng/
Research Summary
Dynamics of Complex Fluids, Interfacial Fluid Dynamics, Processing of Nanocellulose Hydrogels, Cell and Tissue Mechanics
Education
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, 1995, Ph.D.
Peking University, Beijing, China, 1988, M.Sc.
Peking University, Beijing, China, 1985, B.Sc.
Research interests + projects
Our group carries out research in three broad areas: mechanics of biological cells and tissues, interfacial fluid dynamics, and mechanics and rheology of complex fluids. Our work has an interdisciplinary flavor, crosscutting applied mathematics, cell biology, soft-matter physics and chemical and biomedical engineering. I advise graduate students in the departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Mathematics, and I am part of the Biomedical Engineering Program and a member of the Math Biology group. Our methodology involves numerical simulations and experiments. Computational work uses local clusters as well as the WestGrid. Much of the experimental work is done at the Laboratory for Complex and Non-Newtonian Fluid Flow.
Awards and honours
CAIMS Research Prize, Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society , 2017
Wall Scholar, Peter Wall Institute , 2015
Canada Research Chair – II , 2014
Fellow, American Physical Society , 2013
NSF Career Award , 2004
Scholarly and professional activities + affiliations
Physical Review Fluids 2019-2025
Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society 2020-2025
Physical Biology 2020
Biomedical Engineering Program, Hong Kong University 2021
Selected publications + presentations
Li, L., Zhang, J., Yue, P. & Feng, J. J., Mechanical interaction between a hydrogel and an embedded cell in biomicrofluidic applications. Biomicrofluidics 19, 024104 (2025)
Wang, Q., Zhang, J., Bates, D., Feng, J. J., Yue, P. & Wu, Q., Fluid mechanical study of rotation-induced traumatic brain injury. Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 030502 (2025)
Xu, Z., Yue, P. & Feng, J. J., Hystereses in flow-induced compression of a poroelastic hydrogel. Soft Matter 20, 6940-6951 (2024)
Xu, Z., Yue, P. & Feng, J. J., A theory of hydrogel mechanics that couples swelling and external flow. Soft Matter 20, 5389-5406 (2024)
Tafech, B., Rokhforouz, M.-R., Leung, J., Sung, M. M. H., Lin, P. J. C., Sin, D. D., Lauster, D., Block, S., Quon, B. S., Tam, Y., Cullis, P., Feng, J. J. & Hedtrich, S., Exploring mechanisms of lipid nanoparticle-mucus interactions in healthy and cystic fibrosis conditions. Adv. Healthcare Mater. 13, 2304525 (2024)