Brown and Wang receive promotions in academic rank
05/24/2016
Yong Wang, associate professor of biomedical engineering and Justin Brown, assistant professor of biomedical engineering have been promoted within the Department of Biomedical Engineering, effective July 1.
A member of the biomedical engineering department since 2013, Wang has been promoted to the rank of full professor. He oversees the Biomolecular and Biomimetic Materials Lab with a research focus in biomaterials, drug delivery, tissue regeneration, biomimetic engineering and nucleic acid aptamers.
He is a member of the Society for Biomaterials and the Biomedical Engineering Society. In 2015, he was named a recipient of the Grace Woodward Grant for Collaborative Research in Engineering and Medicine and was also awarded a five-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to develop programmable biomaterials.
Wang earned his doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University in 2004 where he spent two subsequent years working as a postdoctoral research associate. In 2006, he joined the University of Connecticut as an assistant professor of biomedical engineering; in 2011, he was promoted to associate professor, a position which he held until joining Penn State in 2013.
Brown, who was promoted to associate professor with tenure, joined the department in 2010. He oversees the Musculoskeletal Regenerative Engineering Lab with a focus inthe generation and regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues.
He is an active member of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research, Society of Biomaterials, Biomedical Engineering Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Chemical Society and serves as a senior member and vice president of the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the Institute of Industrial Engineers.
Brown earned his B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Oklahoma and his doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia.
His awards and honors include the American Association for the Advancement of Science Excellence in Science Award (2008) and the NASA Tech Brief Award (2011).