Xin Zhang Earns Sigma Xi’s Chubb Award
Prestigious Walston Chubb Award for Innovation is latest in string of honors for metamaterials pioneer
Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, bestowed its prestigious Walston Chubb Award for Innovation to Distinguished Professor of Engineering Xin Zhang (ME, ECE, BME, MSE) this past weekend. Zhang received the honor and delivered the Walston Chubb Award Lecture at Sigma Xi’s annual International Forum on Research Excellence, held in Long Beach, California.
Zhang is a pioneer in metamaterials—materials with properties not found in nature. A couple of her most noteworthy accomplishments: Zhang has invented a metamaterial that markedly boosts the signal-to-noise ratio of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and thus significantly improves the performance of MRI; and a metamaterial that can curtail noise without blocking airflow, addressing long-standing noise issues in a wide range of mechanical systems, in which highly efficient air-permeable sound silencers are required.
In addition to running the Laboratory for Microsystems Technology, Zhang directs the National Science Foundation research experience programs for both undergraduates and teachers in integrated nanomanufacturing at BU and serves as associate director of BU’s Nanotechnology Innovation Center.
Remarkably, the Chubb was Zhang’s second high-profile award in the space of a week. She received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Per Bruel Gold Medal for Noise Control and Acoustics just days earlier in New Orleans at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition.
Other honors for Zhang in 2023 alone include the IEEE EMBS Technical Achievement Award and the STAT Madness All-Star Award. Zhang is a Fellow of ASME, IEEE, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Physical Society, and the Optica.
One of the oldest and largest scientific organizations in the world, Sigma Xi comprises scientists and engineers spanning continents and disciplines, and working in industry, government, and academia. More than 200 Nobel Prize winners have been members. Named for a longtime Westinghouse nuclear engineer, the Walston Chubb Award honors and promotes creativity in science and engineering.