Openings

The Laboratory of Interfaces, Fracture, and Transport (LIFT) is a new research group starting in January 2026 at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Our research is highly interdisciplinary and explores the exciting intersection of fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, soft matter, living systems, and applied mathematics.

We are actively recruiting two Ph.D. students with full scholarships for the August 2026 intake.

Ideal Candidates

We are looking for creative and motivated candidates with a strong passion for research, combining experiments with modeling. We seek applicants who are excited to tackle interdisciplinary problems connecting fundamental mechanics to diverse systems.

Immediate projects involve (but are not limited to):

  • Thin film flows: self-similarities and instabilities.
  • Fracture in soft materials: plane-stress to plane-strain transitions and similarity solutions.
  • Fungal colony development: sensing and responding to environmental stimuli.

Successful applicants should have a competitive academic record and must meet all admission requirements for the NTU MAE Ph.D. program.

How to Apply

Interested candidates are encouraged to send an email to Dr. Xue at nan.xue@cornell.edu with the following items:

  1. Your CV
  2. The contact information for two referees

Please note: This email address (@cornell.edu) will be replaced by @ntu.edu.sg in January 2026.