Dr. Xun Yu joined the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, where he worked as an assistant professor from 2006-2010, and associate professor from 2010 -2011. Dr. Yu’s primary research areas include nanotechnology-based smart materials and smart structures, multifunctional materials for energy and biomedical applications, sensors, actuators and controls. His current projects include self-sensing concrete pavement that can monitor structure health and detect traffic flow, active noise cancellation systems for medical instruments, real-time non-intrusive driver sleepiness detection sensors and carbon nanotube-based devices. In the last five years, he has received more than $2.1 million external research funding with $1.2 million received as the principal investigator from funding agencies like the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Transportation. He also led several award-winning national student design and paper competitions. He has published over 41 journal papers, book chapters and conference papers, and he holds one patent.

Dr. Xun Yu's research interests include:

• Nanotechnology based smart materials & smart structures
• Intelligent transportaion and infrastructure systems
• Multifunctional materials (for energy, biomedical applications)
• Sensors and actuators, controls