November 2025: I am thrilled to share that I will be starting a new journey as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore! Multiple Ph.D. and postdoctoral positions are available in my GeoClay research group. Please check the Openings tab for more details.
News during my time at Princeton
October 2025: I am excited to share that in October, I will give an invited talk in the 8th Biot Poromechanics Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The title of my talk is "Multiscale aggregation of smectite nanoparticles: linking microstructure, dynamics, and coupled properties".
August 2025: I am delighted to share that in August, I will give an invited talk in the ACS Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. The title of my talk is "Exploring the large-scale aggregation of smectite clay nanoparticles: microstructure, dynamics, and coupled properties". I will mostly present our recent publication in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2025.137573).
July 2025: I am excited to share that in July, I gave an invited talk in the International Clay Conference, Dublin, Ireland. This is a great honor to recognize my recent award "Warren Huff Clay Science Pathway Award", presented by The Clay Minerals Society. The title of my talk is "Unravelling smectite clay nanoparticle aggregation: microstructure, dynamics, and coupled material properties".
June 2025: I am thrilled to share that I have been honored with the Early Career Scientist Travel Award from the Division of Geochemistry of the American Chemical Society.
May 2025: I gave an oral presentation in the InterPore conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The title of my talk is "A multiscale approach to simulate multiphase non-isothermal fluid flow in deformable porous materials".
May 2025: It was a great pleasure to be invited to visit the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. I fully enjoyed the interactions with students, faculty, and staff at NTU.
April 2025: I gave a poster presentation at the Princeton Materials Institute Symposium, with a talk titled " Molecular simulations of large-scale hydrated smectite clay assemblages across scales".
March 2025: I am excited to share that I gave an invited talk titled "Clay across scales for sustainable geotechnics" in the Emerging Scholars Forum at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
January 2025: I am excited to share that I have been honored with the Outstanding Academic Editor award by Deep Underground Science and Engineering.
December 2024: I am thrilled to announce that I have been honored with the Warren Huff Clay Science Pathway Award, presented by The Clay Minerals Society! This prestigious award recognizes early-career clay scientists for their research contributions to clay science and their professional engagement with the broad clay community.
December 2024: I presented at the AGU Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C., sharing a multiscale approach to predict multiphase non-isothermal fluid flow in deformable porous media. I extended the Darcy-Brinkman-Biot (DBB) framework, originally designed for temperature-independent problems, to a non-isothermal DBB framework by including a new energy conservation equation. I will publish the resulting new solver, hybridBiotThermalInterFoam, in GitHub soon.
November 2024: Ian presented our work in the 4th International Conference on Coupled Processes in Fractured Geological Media: Observation, Modeling, and Application (CouFrac) in Kyoto, with a talk titled "Multiscale simulation of THMC couplings in bentonite clay using a soft matter physics framework".
August 2024: Ian gave a presentation at the ACS Fall Meeting in Denver, CO, sharing our recent publication titled Nanoscale prediction of the thermal, mechanical, and transport properties of hydrated clay on 106- and 1015-fold larger length and time scales (https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.3c05751): https://acs.digitellinc.com/p/s/nanoscale-prediction-of-the-thermal-mechanical-and-transport-properties-of-hydrated-clay-602765
July 2024: I presented at the Gordon Research Conference on Flow and Transport in Permeable Media in Newry, ME, with a talk titled "Modeling thermal effects in coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical simulations of multiphase flow and deformation in ductile porous media".
July 2024: I gave a poster presentation in the DOE Spent Fuel and Waste Science and Technology (SFWST) Annual Program Meeting, Las Vegas, NV, with a talk titled "Multiscale simulations to predict the coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical evolution of an engineered clay barrier".
June 2024: Atsuki presented at the Clay Minerals Society Annual Meeting in Honolulu, HI, where he shared large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of cesium diffusion in clay-water systems, with me as a co-author: https://jopss.jaea.go.jp/search/servlet/search?5081093.
May 2024: I presented at InterPore in Qingdao, China, on "Multiscale modeling of multiphase compressible non-isothermal fluid flow in deformable porous media": https://events.interpore.org/event/46/contributions/6524/
April 2024: I was excited to share that I gave an invited talk titled "Clay across multiple scales: implications for sustainable energy geosystems" at the Graduate Seminar at the University of Houston in Houston, TX.
March 2024: I delivered a talk at the ACS Spring Meeting in New Orleans, LA, titled "Self-assembly of smectite clay nanoparticles: microstructure, dynamics, and rheology": https://acs.digitellinc.com/p/s/self-assembly-of-smectite-clay-nanoparticles-microstructure-dynamics-and-rheology-592947
March 2024: Ian was invited to present at Rutgers University's Materials Science and Engineering colloquium series in New Brunswick, NJ, on "Multiscale simulation of coupled flow, chemistry, and mechanics in ductile clays and biofilms", with me as a co-author: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rutgers-university-school-of-engineering-graduate-professional-education_rutgers-rutgerssoe-materialsscienceandengineering-activity-7178155372002652160-7gfa/
February 2024: I was invited to speak at the SUNY Buffalo Engineering Seminar in Buffalo, NY, where I presented "Clay at multiple scales: implications for sustainable energy geosystems": https://engineering.buffalo.edu/civil-structural-environmental/news-events/Civil-Engineering-Seminar-Series.host.html/content/shared/engineering/civil-structural-environmental/civil-seminars/zheng-xiaojin.detail.html
December 2023: I spoke at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA, on "Smectite tactoids in dilute suspension: a coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation study": https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023AGUFMMR41B0067Z/abstract
December 2023: Ian presented at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA, on "Multiscale simulation of thermal effects in compacted bentonite clay", with me as a co-author: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023AGUFMMR51A0032B/abstract
August 2023: I presented "Dehydration of bentonite clay under high temperature: A large-scale molecular dynamics simulation study" at the ACS Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA: https://acs.digitellinc.com/p/s/dehydration-of-bentonite-clay-under-high-temperature-a-large-scale-molecular-dynamics-simulation-study-577588
May 2023: I shared my research at the Clay Minerals Society Annual Meeting in Austin, TX, with a presentation on "Evolution of bentonite properties during progressive dehydration: a molecular dynamics simulation study."
December 2022: I presented at the AGU Fall Meeting in Chicago, IL, discussing "Thermo-hydro-mechanical properties of water-saturated clay as a function of aqueous chemistry and dry density": https://www.authorea.com/users/564256/articles/611182-thermo-hydro-mechanical-properties-of-water-saturated-clay-as-a-function-of-dry-density-and-temperature
July 2022: I delivered a talk at Goldschmidt in Honolulu, HI, on "Effects of temperature on the thermo-hydro-mechanical properties of water-saturated compacted clay": https://conf.goldschmidt.info/goldschmidt/2022/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/11387
June 2022: I was invited to present "CO2 plume and pressure monitoring through pressure sensors above the caprock" at the Energi Simulation IAP on Carbon Storage and Utilization 1st Annual Workshop in Austin, TX, alongside Espinoza, D. N., Vandamme, M., and Pereira, J.-M.
May 2022: I delivered an invited seminar on "Long-term CO2 geological storage: reservoir injectivity, leakage monitoring, and fault sealing capacity" at the Princeton CEE Department Lunch Seminar in Princeton, NJ: https://cee.princeton.edu/events/cee-seminar-series-xiaojin-zheng-phd
May 2022: I presented on "Molecular dynamics simulations about the thermal-hydro-mechanical properties of engineered clay barriers" at the Princeton Soft Materials Coffee Hour (SMatCH) Seminar in Princeton, NJ, with Underwood, T. R., and Bourg, I. C. as co-authors.
April 2022: I presented at the Gordon Research Conference on Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage in Ventura, CA, with a focus on "Sealing capacity of smectite clay in CO2 geological storage: experiments and molecular dynamics simulation."
December 2021: I was invited to deliver a virtual seminar on "Injection-related risk assessments in CO2 geological storage" to PetroChina Research Center of Salt-Cavern Underground Gas Storage Technology in the PetroChina Underground Gas Storage (UGS) seminar.
September 2021: Nicolas was invited to present our recent publication about "Pressure monitoring above the injection zone for CO2 geological storage" in the GeoScience & GeoEnergy Webinar Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSyX3deGDjM
News during my time at UT Austin
June 2021: I presented at the 55th U.S. Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium (held virtually) on "Pressure monitoring above the injection zone for CO₂ geological storage," with co-authors D. N. Espinoza, M. Vandamme, and J.-M. Pereira: https://onepetro.org/ARMAUSRMS/proceedings/ARMA21/All-ARMA21/ARMA-2021-1609/468260
January 2020: I spoke at the University of Texas 5th Conference on Carbon Capture and Storage in Austin, TX, presenting "Uniaxial strain unloading compressibility of Frio sand: measurements and implications on reservoir pressure management," alongside co-authors Sun, Z., and Espinoza, D. N.
June 2019: I presented at the 53rd U.S. Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium in New York City, NY, discussing "Uniaxial strain unloading compressibility of Frio sand: measurements and implications for reservoir pressure management in CO₂ storage," co-authored with Z. Sun and D. N. Espinoza: https://onepetro.org/ARMAUSRMS/proceedings/ARMA19/All-ARMA19/ARMA-2019-0379/124732
August 2018: Quentin Buck, an undergraduate student I mentored through the UT PGE Summer Undergraduate Research Internship (SURI) Program, gave a poster presentation in Austin, TX, covering "Transport Properties of Fault Gouge Analog."
May 2018: I presented a poster at the UT – Exxon Long Range Research Meeting in Austin, TX, on "Unloading compressibility of Frio sand under uniaxial-strain stress path for geological CO2 injection."
April 2018: I displayed a poster at the ExxonMobil Campus in Spring, TX, titled "Experimental research about CO2 leakage along the fault plane."
News during my time at China University of Petroleum (Beijing)
September 2016: I co-presented at the International Conference on Geomechanics, Geo-energy, and Geo-resources (IC3G) in Melbourne, Australia, discussing "Evaluation of non-Darcy effect on CO2 sequestration in coal seams."
September 2015: I participated in the 6th Future Petroleum Engineers Forum in Beijing, China, with a presentation on "Key factors influencing wellbore stability in hard brittle shale."
September 2014: I was invited to give a talk titled "Geomechanical challenges in shale gas recovery" at the opening ceremony of the 3rd National Petroleum Elite Reading Seminar in Beijing, China.
March 2013: As a Student PI, I co-presented on "Prospects for carbon capture and storage technology" at the 6th Education Week during the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC) in Beijing, China, alongside Vlasich, L., Mulondo, D., etc.