MOE Study Abroad Scholarship STEM Researcher Member of Global Award-Winning Team
Dr. Chen Chen-Yu 陳震宇 was awarded a Ministry of Education scholarship to undertake a PhD program abroad at the University of Maryland (UMD) where he is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices. He and University of Maryland mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate Ms. Xu Xin jointly won the Outstanding Student Oral Presentation Award (in the Chemical/Biological category) at the IEEE MEMS 2025 38th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, organized by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), held in Kaohsiung.
As the university website states: ‘Their paper, “3D-Microprinted Microfluidic Scaffolds and the Rapid Seeding Strategy for Organ-on-a-Chip Applications,” reports on collaborative research from the groups of Robert E. Fischell Distinguished Professor of Engineering William E. Bentley and Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Ryan Sochol to explore a new strategy that could one day limit the need for animal testing in pharmaceutical development.
The IEEE MEMS conference is a leading global event in the microsystems field, with a highly competitive selection process—only about 40 percent of applicants are accepted to participate, and this year fewer than 10 percent of nearly 800 submissions were selected to give oral presentations. Only two Outstanding Student Oral Presentation Award winners were recognized: the UMD team in the chemical and biological category, and another in the physical category.
The UMD team developed two strategies to improve how cells populate 3D-printed structures. The traditional process that relies on passive self-assembly that can take days or weeks. Their method shortened this to just minutes.
On February 25, Andrea Yi-Shan Yang 楊懿珊, Deputy Representative at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) and Sophie Chou 周慧宜, Director of the Ministry’s Education Division at TECRO, visited the University of Maryland to congratulate the UMD President Dr. Darryll J. Pines and the award-winning team that included Taiwanese post-doctoral researcher Dr. Chen. Deputy Representative Yang said that the team’s achievement is an international recognition of scientific and educational collaboration between Taiwan and the U.S. and expressed her hope for further strengthening of cooperation between them in the specific fields of biomedical science, technology, and public health.
Dr. Chen’s honor of jointly winning this award reflects Taiwan's international acclaim for research strength in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and also demonstrates the outstanding achievements of the MOE scholarship program in training outstanding international science researchers.