Principal Investigator

Dr. Xiaoguang Dong is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He is also a core member of the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE). He received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Before joining Vanderbilt University, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. He has received several awards including the NSF CAREER Award, NIH Trailblazer Award, Med-X Young Investigator Award, and Rising Star Award of Advanced Materials Technologies. His group is working on the design, fabrication, and control of novel functional miniature robots and devices, for applications in personalized health care.

Honors and Awards：

• 2026 Nanoscale Emerging Investigators, Royal Society of Chemistry

• 2025 NSF CAREER Award

• 2024-2025 Rising Star Faculty Research Award, School of Engineering, Vanderbilt

• 2025 Scaling Success Award, Vanderbilt University, US

• 2024 NIBIB Trailblazer Award, National Institutes of Health

• 2024 Seeding Success Award, Vanderbilt University, US

• 2024 Med-X Young Investigator Award, Springer Nature

• 2024 Emerging Leaders in Materials Science, APL materials

• 2023 Advanced Materials Technologies Rising Star, Wiley Group

• 2023 RAMP Award, Vanderbilt University, US

• 2022-2023 SEC Faculty Travel Award, US

• 2022 Oak Ridge National Lab Travel Grant, US

• 2020 Max Planck Grassroots Initiative Award, Germany

• 2016-2019 Max Planck PhD Fellowship, Germany 

• 2013-2014 PhD Fellowship, Carnegie Mellon University, US

• 2013 Chancellor Li Chang Scholarship (Top 5 at HIT, 2013), China

• 2012 National Scholarship (Top 1% at HIT), China

• 2011 National Scholarship (Top 1% at HIT), China

• 2010 National Scholarship (Top 1% at HIT), China

Professional service:

• Executive Editorial Board Member, Flexible and Printed Electronics, IOP Science, 2022.08 to present

• Topic Guest Editor, Micromachines, 2021 - present, 2021.01 to present

• Guest Editor, "Magnetic Microrobots for Biomedical Applications", Micromachines, 2022.3-2023.12

• Guest Editor, "Nano and micro swarm robotics", Swarm Intelligence, 2022.10 - 2023.10

• Guest Editor, "Bioinspiration for Healthcare Challenges", Progress in Biomedical Engineering, 2022.6-2023.8

• Associate Editor, IEEE RAS EMBS 10th International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob 2024), 2024.02 to present

• Guest Editor, "Small-Scale Devices in Biomedical Engineering ", Micromachines, 2024.03 - present

• Guest Editor, "Advances in Implantable Devices for Personalized Biomedicine", Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 2024.03 - present

• Program Committee Member of the annual International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales 

• Symposium program committee member in the section of Biological Materials Science, at The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) in 2026 

• Focused Session Chair (Focused session 6) for 2023 International Conference on Flexible, Printable Sensors and Systems in July 2023 

• Co-chair of the workshop “Medical Robotics: Model vs. Data Driven Methods” in 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). 

• Co-Chair of Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE), 2023-2024 Seminar.