Haina Wang

Haina Wang is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts & Sciences. She works with Professors Andrea Liu and John Crocker on modeling the actin cortex as a dynamic learning system, which she describes as the "civil engineering" of living cells.

Her educational background includes:

• B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from National University of Singapore (2018)
• Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry from Princeton University (2024)

Dr. Wang's research focuses on the intersection of physics, chemistry, and biology. Her primary areas of interest include Biophysics, Statistical Mechanics, and Chemical Physics, with particular emphasis on disordered active systems in biological contexts. During her doctoral studies at Princeton under Prof. Salvatore Torquato, she investigated extracting microscopic forces from correlation functions of fluids and the inverse design of disordered hyperuniform systems—exotic states of matter that exist between typical liquids and crystals. This work on order metrics in chemical physics sparked her current interest in applying similar principles to biological systems.

Wang's publication record demonstrates a strong focus on hyperuniformity, pair statistics, and many-body systems across ten publications in high-impact journals. Her research trajectory shows progression from fundamental theoretical work on crystal structures and hard-sphere systems toward increasingly biological applications. Recent publications examine hole statistics in crystalline structures, designer pair statistics for disordered systems, and the dynamic measurement of hyperuniformity in heterogeneous media, culminating in her current work on cellular mechanics.

As a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Wang is actively contributing to interdisciplinary collaborations that bridge physics, chemistry, and biology. Her current work on modeling the actin cortex as a dynamic learning system represents an innovative approach to understanding cellular mechanics through engineering principles, potentially opening new avenues for research in cellular biophysics and soft matter physics.