Yi-Fan Chen is a professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at National Central University in Taiwan. As a biological physicist, he is intrigued by the rich physical phenomena, including phase and critical behaviors, displayed by biomolecules (e.g., proteins, peptides and lipids) in biomembranes. He approaches these research initiatives from structural and dynamic perspectives and interpret experimental findings on the frameworks of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Synchrotron-based X-ray and neutron, both elastic and inelastic, scattering are his major experimental tools in attacking the research problems.

We are interested in applying the synchrotron- and neutron-based scattering and diffraction techniques to studying the structures, dynamics and phase behaviors of biological soft matter, including lipids, proteins/peptides and nucleic acids. We aim to explore how the function of matter is correlated with its structure and dynamics. This knowledge will not only advance our understanding towards the matter (which interests scientists) but also facilitate fabricating materials with desirable properties (which is a desirable achievement for engineers). Currently, our research interests include:

1. Mechanisms of the Phase Behavior Exhibited by Phospholipids and Proteins/Peptides
2. Correlations Between the Structural, Mechanical and Dynamical Properties of Biomimetic Lipid Membranes across differing length scales
3. Structural and Dynamical Studies of Polymer Nanoparticle Composites
4. Application of Neutron-based Scattering Techniques to the Studies of Biological and Novel Materials Systems

We welcome graduate and undergraduate students who are interested in these topics. We also seek potential collaborators who are interested in structurally and dynamically characterizing their biological and materials systems.