Zhangli Peng

Zhangli Peng is Associate Professor in the Richard and Loan Hill Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago and a Principal Investigator in the Center for Bioinformatics and Quantitative Biology. His interdisciplinary program couples advanced multiscale modeling with targeted experiments to understand how soft biological materials—particularly blood cells—negotiate extreme mechanical environments in the microcirculation.

Education & Training

• Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences (Civil/Structural), University of California San Diego, Qiang Zhu Laboratory
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Subra Suresh & Ming Dao Laboratories

Research Interests

Peng’s group develops and integrates atomistic (all-atom MD, coarse-grained DPD) and continuum (FEM, BEM, SPH) approaches to model cells, organelles, and tissues across length- and time-scales. Core themes include:

• Red-blood-cell biomechanics and splenic filtration
• Primary cilium mechanobiology and ciliopathies
• Micro- and nano-fluidic devices for diagnostics and cell separation
• Mechanics of cancer metastasis and hematologic disorders
• Bio-inspired tensegrity and flow-energy-harvesting structures

Recent Scholarly Output

His 2023–2025 publications illuminate inertial microfluidics, splenic filtration, Piezo1 mechanosensing, and nuclear lamina mechanics, frequently appearing in PNAS, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Lab on a Chip, and Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics.

Honors & Awards

• 2024 NSF CAREER Award, Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation
• 2023 ASH Junior Faculty Scholar Award, American Society of Hematology
• 2025 UIC College of Engineering Teaching Award

Students & Mentorship

Peng currently advises Angela Mitevska, Moein Naderi, Giuseppe Lauricella, Lubna Shah, Zhengxin Tang, Timothy Leong, and Qiyue Luan, among others. His trainees consistently earn top awards at the UIC Engineering Research Symposium and publish in leading disciplinary journals.

Laboratory & Collaborations

His Multiscale Biomechanics & Microfluidics Laboratory occupies suite CSN-164F in the Clinical Science North building on the UIC medical campus. Active collaborations span MIT, UC Irvine, University of Rochester, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Cleveland State University.