Meet new faculty member Shinuo Weng, assistant professor and principal investigator in the Tissue Morpho and Mechanics Lab and an associate researcher at the Institute for NanoBiotechnology, who joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in Spring 2024.
What are your main areas of expertise/interest/research? Is there a specific problem you are trying to solve?
My current research focuses on biomechanics and mechanobiology in developmental biology. I aim to understand how forces shape tissues during development and, in the long term, apply these biomechanical principles to engineer tissues with better shape and function.
What are some of your goals at JHU?
At JHU, I envision contributing to strengthening the biomechanics community, mentoring and inspiring future engineers and scientists, and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion through academic and outreach activities.
What inspired you to pursue biomechanical engineering as a discipline?
I was trained as a mechanical engineer, and my personal interests also lie in human health and biology. This drives me to work on biomechanics.
Where did you grow up and where did you live before Baltimore?
I grew up in Zhou (meaning “boat” in Mandarin) Shan (meaning “mountain” in Mandarin), China. After completing my college in Shanghai, I went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for my graduate studies and later to The University of Texas in Austin for my postdoc. Now, I am very happy to have moved to Maryland where I can be close to both boats and mountains.
Outside of teaching and mechanical engineering in general, what are your other interests? Any favorite films, music, books, etc.?
Outside the office, lab, and classroom, I enjoy reading non-fiction books. Some of my favorites from last year include “Consulting for Toads” (important note: not the toads I work with in the lab), “Hidden Valley Road,” and “Meili Snow Mountains: In Search for 17 Friends.” I am working on “Invisible Child” now and it is getting hard to digest.