(Sept. 2025) Dong Lab received the Innovation Catalyst Fund Award to work on smart esophageal stents for anti-aspiration and anti-reflux!
(Sept. 2025) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk on Wireless Miniature Robots and Implantable Devices for Minimally Invasive Medical Operations at University at Albany, State University of New York!
(Sept. 2025) Dr. Dong hosted Prof. Jun Chen from UCLA in the 2025 VISE seminar series!
(Sept. 2025) UG student - Leah joined Dong Lab for research! Welcome!
(Sept. 2025) Congratulations to Kiyoung, Jacob, Jiale, Boyang and our medical collaborator that our paper titled "Wireless Capsule Device for Targeted and Safe Tissue Biopsy with Integrated Sensing" has been published online in Advanced Materials Technologies!
(Aug. 2025) Graduate student Shengwei, UG students Nick, Shirley joined Dong Lab for research! Welcome!
(Aug. 2025) Congratulations to Dr. Dong that he has been awarded the Med-X Young Investigator Award by Springer Nature!
(Aug. 2025) Congratulations to Yusheng and Ruijian that our invited perspective paper on wireless implantable devices/robotics systems is now published online on Advanced Robotics Research!
(July 2025) Congratulations to Dong Lab received NSF CAREER Award!
(June 2025) Congratulations Honglu Lin on successfully defending his MS thesis! Well done!
(May 2025) UG Students - Jacob, Peixi, Darren, Timothy, Miles, Jiale, Emma joined Dong Lab for summer research! Welcome!
(May 2025) Congratulations to Boyang, Yi that our review paper on drug delivery and sensing in the bladder has been published online by Med-X (Springer Nature) in the special issue of "Soft Bioelectronics for Personalize Healthcare"!
(May 2025) Congratulations to Cole, Yusheng and other members that our paper on orthopedic surgery and implant has been featured on the front page of Device (Cell Press)!
(May 2025) Congratulations that Dong Lab received the 2024-2025 Rising Star Research Award of VUSE! Thanks all the lab members who have done research in Dong Lab! Cheers!
(April 2025) Congratulations Kiyoung Kim on graduating with a MS degree of Mechanical Engineering! Best wishes to Kiyoung!
(April 2025) Congraduations to our UG students Cole, Saksham, Kaijia got the 2025 ME Materials & Advanced Devices Award (Senior Award)!
(April 2025) Congratulations that our Graduate student Yusheng successfully renewed his Dean's Graduate Fellowship!
(April 2025) Congratulations that our UG student Saksham Sharma has been awarded the Best Poster Award (1st place) in 2025 Undergraduate Spring Research Symposium with the work on bioinspired esophageal stent for restoring peristalsis and preventing aspiration! Dr. Dong and Saksham will be introduced by the Chancellor in the ceremony!
(April 2025) Dr. Dong presented Dong Lab's recent research works on medical robotics in the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering (VUSE) Board-of-Vistor Meeting and received a lot of positive feedback!
(April 2025) Dr. Dong delivered an invited talk titled "Wireless Miniature Robotic Devices Merging Soft Sensors and Actuators for Personalized Biomedicine" in the Annual ECE Day at Vanderbilt!
(April 2024) UG Student - Peixi Xuan got 2025 VUSE summer fellowship to perform research in Dong Lab! Congrats!
(April 2024) UG Student - Jiale Chu got 2025 VISE summer fellowship to perform research in Dong Lab! Congrats!
(March 2025) Congratulations Kiyoung Kim on successfully defending his MS thesis! Well done!
(March 2025) Congratulations that Dong Lab has been awarded VU Scaling Success Award to work on smart implantable medical devices!
(Feb. 2025) Congratulations to Boyang, Yi that our review paper on drug delivery and sensing in the bladder has been accepted by Med-X (Springer Nature) in the special issue of "Soft Bioelectronics for Personalize Healthcare"!
(Jan. 2025) Congratulations to Boyang, Honglu, Emily and our medical collaborators that our paper titled "Wireless microfluidics-enabled multifunctional miniature soft robots with multimodal locomotion for fluid manipulation" was published on Device (Cell Press)!
(Jan. 2025) Congratulations to Cole, Yusheng and other members that our paper on orthopedic surgery and implant has been published on Device (Cell Press)!
(Jan. 2025) Dong Lab welcomes new UG students Miles, Timothy, Darren,Tausif and Jacob, to work in our lab for UG research!
(Jan. 2025) Congratulations to Kiyoung, Steven and other team members that our paper on mucosa-interfacing electronic device for palpation-based sensing has been published on Advanced Materials Technologies!
(Dec. 2024) Congratulations to Yusheng on the 2024 VISE Symposium Poster Award (1st Place)!
(Nov. 2024) Congratulations to Yusheng, Carlos and other team members that our paper has been published on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences!!
[News]
(Oct. 2024) Dr. Dong is elected as a symposium program committee member in the section of Biological Materials Science, at The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) in 2026.
(Oct. 2024) Dr. Dong gave a talk on sensory airway stents in the 2024 Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting!
(Oct. 2024) Congratulations to Yilan, Honglu, Boyang, and other members that our paper on wireless pumping in dental implants has been published on Advanced Healthcare Materials and selected as Frontispiece!
(Sept. 2024) Dr. Dong hosted Prof. Christopher Bettinger from CMU and DARPA in the VISE seminar series!
(Sept. 2024) Dr. Dong gave an invited seminar in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Vanderbilt!
(Aug. 2024) Dr. Dong is co-chairing VISE seminar in 2024 Summer and Fall!
(Aug. 2024) Congratulations that our paper on millimeter-scale soft capsules for sampling liquids has been published on Science Advances!
(Aug. 2024) Welcome our new graduate students Ruijian, Yi and Zhongming!
(Aug. 2024) Congratulations to our summer intern Evan's great VISE summer seminar talk!
(Aug. 2024) Congratulations to Yilan, Honglu, Boyang, and other members that our paper on wireless pumping in dental implants has been accepted by Advanced Healthcare Materials!
(July 2024) Dr. Dong is co-organized a special issue in Micromachine - Small-Scale Devices in Biomedical Engineering!
(July 2024) Dr. Dong is co-organized a special issue in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology - Advances in Implantable Devices for Personalized Biomedicine!
(July 2024) Dong Lab was awarded with the NIH NIBIB Trailblazer Award!
(July 2024) Dr. Dong becomes the Co-Chair of Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE), 2023-2024 Seminar!
(June 2024) Dong Lab was awarded with the VU Seeding Sucesss Award!
(June 2024) Dong Lab visited Nashville Zoo!
(June 2024) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk at ISMR 2024 at Georgia Tech!
(May 2024) Dong Lab had a BBQ together!
(May 2024) Congratulations to Saksham, Laura, Nicholas, Yusheng, Ane that our paper on wireless soft robotic esophageal stent has been accepted by Advanced Functional Materials!
Our work is highlighted by VUSE Research News!
(May 2024) UG Student - Nick Diaz joined Dong Lab for summer research! Welcome!
(May 2024) Congratulations to Emily Buckner who successfully presented her summer research (2023 Summer) on soft robotic at MRS Spring 2024 meeting!
(April 2024) Dr. Dong gave a guest lecture on small scale medical robotics in "Medical Robotics" taught by Prof. Yue Chen, at George Tech!
(April 2024) UG Student - Ane Kirk-Jadric got 2024 University Fellowship to perform research in Dong Lab! Congrats!
(April 2024) UG Student - Laura Caroline got 2024 SyBBURE summer fellowship to perform research in Dong Lab! Congrats!
(April 2024) UG Student - Evan Ticknor got 2024 VISE summer fellowship to perform research in Dong Lab! Congrats!
(April 2024) UG Student - Alend Khoshnaw got 2024 VUSE summer fellowship to perform research in Dong Lab! Congrats!
(Mar. 2024) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk on small scale medical robotics in the Department of Bioengineering, at George Mason University!
(Mar. 2024) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk on bioinspired medical devices in TMS 2024!
(Jan. 2024) Dr. Dong serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE BioRob 2024!
(Jan. 2024) Dr. Dong presented our research in 2024 Gordon Conference on Robotics!
(Jan. 2024) Dong Lab welcomes new UG students Ane, Chanwoo, Alend, and Ethan to work in our lab for UG research!
(Dec. 2023) Congratulations to our UG member Yilan Xu for receiving the Best UG Poster Award in VISE symposium, and the 2nd place Best Poster Award in VINSE NanoDay!
(Nov. 2023) Congratulations to Boyang, Yilan, Steven, and Lohit that our paper "Sensing Mucus Physiological Property In Situ by Wireless Millimeter-Scale Soft Robots" has been published in Advanced Functional Materials!
(Oct. 2023) Congratulations to Yusheng and Saksham that our paper "Wirelessly Actuated Ciliary Airway Stent for Excessive Mucus Transportation" has been published in Advanced Materials and Technologies! The paper is also included as the "Rising Stars" series of Advanced Materials!
Presented in Nature Conference on
(Oct. 2023) Dr. Dong will give a talk on implantable medical devices in 2023 Nature Conference on Global Health!
(Oct. 2023) Dong Lab welcomes new UG students Joel Berinstein for fall research!
(Oct. 2023) Our paper "Actuation-enhanced multifunctional sensing and information recognition by magnetic artificial cilia arrays" has been published on PNAS! Dr. Dong is the co-first and corresponding author.
(Oct. 2023) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk at the "Symposium 6-3 Soft Robotics: Matter, Structure, and Intelligence", Society of Engineering Science Annual Meeting hosted by U of Minnesota!
(Oct. 2023) Dr. Dong co-chaired the 2023 IROS workshop titled "Debate: Model or Data in Medical Robotics" at Detroit!
(Sept. 2023) Congratulations to Yilan and Boyang that our paper "Wireless Millimeter-Size Soft Climbing Robots With Omnidirectional Steerability on Tissue Surfaces" has been published on IEEE Robotics and Automation Letter!
(Sept. 2023) Dr. Dong hosted the VINSE seminar titled "Tiny Robots" by Prof. Marc Miskin from U Penn!
(Aug. 2023) Congratulations to our lab members Hieu and Yilan on their great VISE summer seminar talks!
(Aug. 2023) Dr. Dong got the RAMP award from Vanderbilt University!
(Aug. 2023) Dong Lab welcomes new graduate students Kiyoung and Honglu, and UG students Joseph, Carlos, Nathan and Laura for fall research!
(Aug. 2023) Congratulations to our NSF REU student Emily Buckner on receiving the the Best Poster Award in the VINSE UG summer symposium!
(July 2023) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk in the Schoole of Medcine, Yale University!
(July 2023) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk at the Louisville Automation & Robotics Research Institute (LARRI), University of Louisville!
(July 2023) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk in and the other at the NSF NNCI Nano + Additive Manufacture summit!
(June 2023) We welcome Lucio to join Dong Lab for summer research!
(June 2023) Our paper "In situ sensing physiological properties of biological tissues using wireless miniature soft robots" has been published on Science Advances! Dr. Dong is the co-first and corresponding author.
(May 2023) Dong Lab is hosting NSF REU student Emily Buckner for summer research.
(April 2023) Our workshop proposal on medical robotics is accepted to IROS 2023!
(Mar. 2023) Dr. Dong gave an invited talk at University of Notre Dame on medical miniature robots!
(Feb. 2023) Congratulations to our UG lab member Shreya Shrestha on her poster award on medical capsule robot (2nd place) at the Annual TLSAMP Undergraduate Research Conference!
(Jan. 2023) Dr. Dong joined the Program Committee of the International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales.
(Jan. 2023) Dong Lab received a seed grant from Vanderbilt Insitute for Surgery and Engineering to develop minimally invasive medical robots!
(Dec. 2022) Dr. Dong got a secondary appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at VU.
(Nov. 2022) Dr. Dong hosted the department seminar talk by Prof. Yuxiao Zhou from Texas A&M.
(Nov. 2022) Dong Lab presented in Vanderbilt NanoDay.
(Oct. 2022) Dr. Dong presented in a symposium on Soft Robotics: Matter, Structure, and Intelligence at the 2022 Society of Engineering Science Annual Technical Meeting at Texas A&M.
(Oct. 2022) Dr. Dong co-organized a symposium on extreme soft materials at the 2022 Society of Engineering Science Annual Technical Meeting at Texas A&M.
(Oct. 2022) Dong Lab presented in Tennesse Maker Festival and outreached to public audience on our research on miniature robotics for biomedical applications!
(Sept. 2022) Dr. Dong hosted the department seminar talk by Prof. Sheng Xu from UCSD!
(Sept. 2022) Our lab member Shreya is attending the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Conference through Vanderbilt's SWE Chapter!
(August 2022) Welcome our new PhD student - Yusheng Wang, ESI Research Assistant - Kyle Fuxa, and UG Research Assistant - Hieu Vu, Kun Qiu and Mohamed Aziz Medhioub!
(August 2022) Dr. Dong got the SEC Faculty Travel Grant!
(August 2022) Dr. Dong presented in 2022 Gordon Research Conference on Robotics.
(August 2022) Dr. Dong gave a talk at 2022 NNCI Nano+Additive Manufacturing Summit.
(August 2022) Congrats to Andrew Haworth, a summer undergrad fellow working in Dong Lab, for presenting his research at the VISE Seminar!
(July 2022) Dr. Dong joins to the Executive Editorial Board of "Flexible and Printed Electronics" !
(July 2022) Dr. Dong received a user grant from Oak Ridge National Lab!
(June 2022) Our work titled "Wireless soft millirobots for climbing three-dimensional surfaces in confined spaces!" published in Sci. Adv. (link) got highlighted in several news such as NewScientist and TechXplore!
(May 2022) Dr. Dong served as a session Chair at the 2022 National Image-Guided Therapy Workshop (May 19, 2022, Virtual), Medical Robotics Interactive Oral Session!
(April 2022) Dr. Dong hosted the department seminar talk by Prof. Wei Gao from Caltech!
(April 2022) An invited seminar talk is given by Dr. Dong on shape-morphable wireless miniature robots in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, US.
(April 2022) An invited talk is given by Dr. Dong in the workshop “Surgical Robotics: the next generation” at the 2022 International Symposium on Medical Robotics, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, US.
(April 2022) Our paper titled “Wireless Soft Millirobots for Climbing Three-dimensional Surfaces in Confined Spaces” has been accepted by Science Advances!
(April 2022) We received a pilot grant award from Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering!
(March 2022) Dr. Dong co-hosted a webinar by Prof. Ryan L. Truby from Northwestern University on “Designing Robotic Materials from Sensorized Soft and Architected Matter”.
(March 2022) Our paper titled “Creating three-dimensional magnetic functional microdevices via molding-integrated direct laser writing” has been accepted by Nature Communications!
(March 2022) Congratulations that our lab member Andrew Haworth received an Undergraduate Summer Fellowship from Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering!
(Feb. 2022) Dr. Dong hosted the department seminar talk by Prof. Giovanni Traverso from MIT!
(Feb. 2022) We are looking for strong candidates to join for the PhD and MS program at ME of Vanderbilt. Please see “Opportunity” for more details.
(Feb. 2022) We are looking for strong undergraduates for summer research. Please see VUSE Summer Research Program for application details.
(Feb. 2022) I am co-organizing a special issue on Nano and micro swarm robotics in Swarm Intelligence as a guest editor together with colleagues Prof. Josh Bongard, Prof. Sabine Hauert, and Prof. Metin Sitti. For the details of this special issue, please see the call-for-paper information via link.
(Jan. 2022) I am officially affiliated with the Vanderbilt Insitute for Surgery and Engineering, VISE link.
(Nov. 2021) I am co-organizing a journal special issue on “Magnetic Microrobots for Biomedical Applications”. You are welcome to submit your work to Micromachines.
(Oct. 2021) I am joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering, at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, US in January 2022 as an Assistant Professor. We are actively recruiting PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers. Please see “Opening” for more details.