Mingchao Liu, Dr

Mingchao Liu, Dr

Assistant Professor at University of Birmingham

Adaptive & Intelligent Matter (AIM) Lab

The Adaptive & Intelligent Matter (AIM) Lab explores how materials, structures, and mechanics can be harnessed to create systems that adapt, morph, and exhibit physical intelligence. By integrating nonlinear mechanics, metamaterial design, and soft robotics, we seek fundamental principles that enable mechanical intelligence—where adaptation and decision-making arise from the intrinsic dynamics of matter rather than from digital control. Our research spans multistable morphing structures, bio-inspired soft machines, and AI-driven inverse design of robotic systems. Through the convergence of solid mechanics, applied mathematics, and robotic materials, the AIM Lab advances adaptive and intelligent matter—structures capable of sensing, learning, and evolving with their environments.

Research Summary

The Principal Investigator

Dr. Mingchao Liu (刘明超) is currently an Assistant Professor at University of Birmingham. Before move to Birmingham, he was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore from 2022 to 2023, and a Newton International Fellow at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, sponsored by the Royal Society from 2018 to 2022. He graduated from Tsinghua University in 2018 with a PhD in Engineering from the Department of Engineering Mechanics. During his Ph.D study, he spent six months in 2017 as a visiting research fellow at the University of Sydney under the support of the Endeavour Research Fellowship. Prior to this, He received his B.S. in Engineering Mechanics from Shandong University in 2013.

Recent News

  1. 2026/04: Our paper, ‘Programmable symmetry-breaking in folded elastic ribbons via tunable pitchfork bifurcations.’, has been published in JMPS.
  2. 2026/04: Dr. Liu has been nominated for the Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year 2026 in the Engineering & Technology category.
  3. 2026/03: Dr. Liu attended the 1st Metamaterials Manufacturing Conference at Birmingham as an invited speaker and presented “Shape-Morphing Metamaterials: From Natural Principles to Functional Structures”.
  4. 2026/01: Dr. Liu attended the Mechano-X Workshop 2026 at Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center, Bali, Indonesia as an invited speaker and presented “Lessons from Drying Leaves: How Strain Mismatch Drives Folding”.
  5. 2025/12: Our paper, ‘Rate dependence in granular matter with application to tunable metamaterials.’, has been published in Matter and Highlighted in the Tech Xplore, SciTechDaily, The Engineer, Interesting Engineering, Scienmag, Bioengineer.org, Knowridge, AcademicJobs, and the News of the University of Birmingham.
  6. 2025/12: Our paper, ‘Inverse elastica: A theoretical framework for inverse design of morphing slender structures.’, has been published in JMPS.
  7. 2025/12: Our paper, ‘Nematic Design for Shape Morphing.’, has been published in Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst..
  8. 2025/12: Our paper, ‘Discrete differential geometry for simulating nonlinear behaviors of flexible systems: A survey.’, has been published in EML.
  9. 2025/11: Dixuan Hu from Tongji University has joined the group as a visiting PhD student. Welcome!
  10. 2025/11: Dr. Liu has been awarded the 2025 JMPS Best Referee Award.
  11. 2025/10: Our paper, ‘Midveins regulate the shape formation of drying leaves.’, has been published in JMPS and Highlighted in the News of the University of Birmingham.
  12. 2025/09: Our paper, ‘Twist-Induced bifurcation and path manipulation in compressed ribbons.’, has been published in JMPS.
  13. 2025/08: Our paper, ‘Localization of deformation in the central hub of hub-and-spoke kirigami.’, has been published in JMPS.
  14. 2025/07: Our paper, ‘Harnessing Discrete Differential Geometry: A Virtual Playground for the Bilayer Soft Robotics.’, has been published in Adv. Intell. Syst..
  15. 2025/07: Dr. Liu has been awarded the Florence Price Award for Outstanding Early-Career Academic at the University of Birmingham Founders’ Awards 2025.
  16. 2025/06: Our paper, ‘A tutorial on simulating nonlinear behaviors of flexible structures with the discrete differential geometry (DDG) method.’, has been published in Appl. Mech. Rev. and Highlighted in the News of the University of Birmingham.
  17. 2025/06: Our paper, ‘Real-time simulation enabled navigation control of magnetic soft continuum robots in confined lumens.’, has been published in JMPS.
  18. 2025/05: Dr. Liu has attended The 31st International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences (ICCES2025) in Changsha, China and has been awarded the ICCES Outstanding Young Researcher Award.
  19. 2025/05: Dr. Liu was invited to write a Preview article for Newton.
  20. 2025/05: Our paper, ‘Achieving symmetric snap-through buckling via designed magnetic actuation.’, has been published in Sci. Adv. and Highlighted in the News of the University of Birmingham.
  21. 2025/05: Our paper, ‘Localized tension–induced giant folding in unstructured elastic sheets.’, has been published in PNAS and Highlighted in the News of the University of Birmingham.