Sung Hoon Kang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and associate faculty member at the Institute for NanoBioTechnology at Johns Hopkins University, has been selected to take part in the 2019 China-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (CAFOE), to be held June 20-22 in San Diego, California.

Organized by National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), CAFOE brings together a select group of emerging engineering leaders from China and the United States. The event, which brings attendees from universities, industry, and government, is intended to facilitate international and cross-disciplinary research collaboration, promote the transfer of new techniques and approaches across disparate engineering fields, and encourage the creation of a transpacific network of world-class engineers.

Kang is among 60 early-career engineers who have been chosen to participate. The symposium will cover four topics – smart cities, new materials, neuroengineering, and 5G wireless communications technology. Each participant will be asked to present a poster describing their research or technical work.

Kang is working to develop next-generation materials and mechanical systems inspired by nature. In particular, he studies how to control a material’s structure and properties at the nano/micro/macro level. For example, Kang has been funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to identify synthetic pathways for making multifunctional materials with self-adaptable mechanical properties and self-regeneration. This project has potential applications to the design and manufacture of new aerospace materials. Click here to learn more about Prof. Kang and his research.

This marks the second time Kang has been recognized by the NAE for his work; he was also invited to attend NAE’s U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in 2016.

Kang joined the Department Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 2015. He is an associate faculty member with both the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute. Kang earned a PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard University, and his MS and BS degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and Seoul National University, respectively.

This story originally appeared on the Department of Mechanical Engineering website.