Background Information: 

Junwei Wang, Assistant Professor in College of Science, Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, China. Bachelor’s degree from the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Tongji University in 2013. Master's degree in 2016 and a Ph.D. in 2021 from the Department of Bio- and Chemical Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (with Prof. Nicolas Vogel and Prof. Michael Engel). Postdoctoral research at the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge from 2022 to 2023 (with Professor Silvia Vignolini). Research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Germany from 2023 to 2024.

The main research focus includes the colloid crystallization and the structural color in bacterial biofilms. In recent years, research works were published in Nature Communications, Science Advances, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, and Angewandte Chemie and other reputable journals. Research findings were reported by scientific media outlets such as phys.org, EurekAlert, and Science & Vie.

Research Field:

Our group works at the intersection of soft matter physics, microbiology, and materials science, driven by two core missions: unravel how intricate structures and functionalities emerge from simple passive and active building blocks, and design bioinspired sustainable materials for real-world applications. Our main research themes are:

1, Colloidal self-assembly in confined space

2, Gliding bacterial motility and their collective behaviors

3, Dynamical, programmable emulsion-based materials

4, Microbial-based photonic materials

Educational Background:

2016/09 - 2021/09: Ph.D., Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering

2013/09 - 2016/09: Master's Degree, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering

2009/09 - 2013/09: Bachelor's Degree, Tongji University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Work Experience:

2023/10 - 2025/01: Group Leader, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany 2022/03 - 2023/10: Postdoc, University of Cambridge, Department of Chemistry, UK

2021/09 - 2022/02: Postdoc, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering, Germany

Academic Part-time Jobs (Partial):

Reviewer for Nature Communications, ACS Nano, Nano Letters, Lab on a Chip, Langmuir 

Representative Works:

Google Scholar：

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KIsCXuoAAAAJ&hl=en

Orcid：

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9062-8736

Ten Representative Works 

(* refers to the corresponding author, + refers to shared first authors）

Magic number colloidal clusters as minimum free energy structures

Wang, J., Mbah, C.F., Przybilla, T., Apeleo Zubiri, B., Spiecker, E., Engel, M., Vogel, N

Nature communications, 9(1), p.5259 (2018)

Early-Stage Bifurcation of Crystallization in a Sphere

Mbah, C.F.+, Wang, J.+, Englisch, S.+, Bommineni, P., Varela-Rosales, N.R., Spiecker, E., Vogel, N., and Engel, M.

Nature Communication, 14(1), p.5299 (2023)

Mechanics of colloidal supraparticles under compression

Wang, J., Schwenger, J., Ströbel, A., Feldner, P., Herre, P., Romeis, S., Peukert, W., Merle, B., Vogel, N.

Science advances, 7(42), p.eabj0954 (2021)

Breakdown of Magic Numbers in Spherical Confinement

Wang, J.*, Martín-González, J., Lukas, R., Silvan, E., Mbah, C., Bommineni, P., Erdmann, S., Engel, M*., Vogel, N*

ACS Nano (Front Cover), doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c11099

Free energy landscape of colloidal clusters in spherical confinement

Wang, J., Mbah, C.F., Przybilla, T., Englisch, S., Spiecker, E., Engel, M., Vogel, N.

ACS nano (Front Cover), 13(8), pp.9005-9015 (2019)

Tailored double emulsions made simple

Wang, J., Hahn, S., Amstad, E. and Vogel, N.

Advanced Materials (Front Cover), 34(5), p.2107338 (2022)

Structural color of colloidal clusters as a tool to investigate structure and dynamics

Wang, J., Sultan, U., Goerlitzer, E.S., Mbah, C.F., Engel, M., Vogel, N.

Advanced Functional Materials, 30(26), p.1907730 (2020)

Coloration in Supraparticles Assembled from Polyhedral Metal-Organic Framework Particles

Wang, J., Liu, Y., Bleyer, G., Goerlitzer, E.S., Englisch, S., Przybilla, T., Mbah, C.F., Engel, M., Spiecker, E., Imaz, I., Maspoch, D., Vogel, N.

Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 61(16), p.e202117455 (2022)

Influence of Surfactant-Mediated Interparticle Contacts on the Mechanical Stability of Supraparticles

Wang, J., Kang, E., Sultan, U., Merle, B., Inayat, A., Graczykowski, B., Fytas, G., Vogel, N.

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 125(42), pp.23445-23456 (2021)

Fast Gas-Adsorption Kinetics in Supraparticle-Based MOF Packings with Hierarchical Porosity

Fujiwara, A., Wang. J., Hiraide, S., Götz, A., Miyahara, M., Hartmann, M., Zubiri, B.A., Spiecker, E., Vogel, N., and Watanabe, S.

Advanced Materials, p.2305980 (2023)