University of Toronto homepage
Photo of Xinyu Liu

Xinyu Liu

Professor

Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Orcid identifier0000-0001-5705-9765
  • Professor
    Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

BIO

Xinyu Liu is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, he was an Associate Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Microfluidics and BioMEMS in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University. He obtained his B.Eng. and M.Eng. from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2009, all in Mechanical Engineering. He then completed an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University in 2009–2011.

Xinyu’s research interests are at the interfaces of microfluidics and robotics. His research group is developing integrated micro/nano devices and systems to target a variety of exciting applications in biology, medicine, and environment. Applications of their recent technologies include point-of-care diagnostics, environmental monitoring, large-scale gene editing, and wearable and implantable sensing, and robotic rehabilitation.

He received the 2012 Rising Star in Global Health Award from Grand Challenge Canada, the 2012 Douglas R. Colton Metal for Research Excellence from CMC Microsystems, the 2013 Award of Excellence for Basic Science Research from the McGill Surgery Department, the 2017 Christophe Pierre Award for Research Excellence from McGill Faculty of Engineering, the 2018 Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the Microsystems & Nanoengineering Summit, the 2020 Highly Cited Article Award from Microsystems & Nanoengineering (IF: 7.1), the 2020 Outstanding Article Award from Materials Horizons (IF: 13.3), and six Best Paper Awards at major engineering and biomedical conferences. He is an elected Fellow of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Xinyu serves as a Co-Chair of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Technical Committee of Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation. He is an Editor of IEEE Robotics & Automation Letters and Microsystems & Nanoengineering, and an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, and IET Cyber-Systems and Robotics. He also served on editorial boards of the three major IEEE-RAS conferences (ICRA, IROS, and CASE), and serves on the Steering Committee of the International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at the Small Scales (MARSS).

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Percy Edward Hart Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
    University of Toronto, Toronto, CanadaJul 2019 - present
  • Associate Professor
    University of Toronto, Toronto, CanadaSep 2017 - Jun 2021
  • Associate Professor
    McGill University, Montreal, CanadaJun 2017 - Aug 2017
  • Professor
    University of Toronto, Toronto, CanadaJul 2021 - present
  • Assistant Professor
    McGill University, Montreal, CanadaMay 2011 - May 2017
  • Postdoctoral Fellow
    Harvard University, Cambridge, United StatesNov 2009 - May 2011

DEGREES

  • PhD in Robotics and MEMS
    University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  • Master of Engineering
    Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China
  • B.Eng in Mechanical Engineering
    Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

  • Robotics Institute
  • TRANSFORM Heart Failure (TRANSFORM HF)
  • PRiME (Precision Medicine Initiative)