Zhaofeng Peng (彭兆丰)
Polymer Science & Engineering, UMass Amherst
Hello! My name is Zhaofeng Peng, currently a first-year Ph.D. student in Polymer Science and Engineering at UMass Amherst, working with Professor Laurel Kroo. Before this, I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Peking University, Beijing.
Currently, I am working on the fluid mechanics of soft matter systems, such as flow-directed self-assemblies and instabilities of polymeric fluids. During my undergrad, I conduncted my research with Professor Guang Chen on the osmotic pressure of polyelectrolyte solutions and the swelling behavior of red blood cells.
In my free time, I love listening to music and occasionally creating my own (very amateur though). If you’re interested, please check out my gallery and give it a listen!
Education
09/25-present: University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) Polymer Science and Engineering
09/21-07/25: Peking University (PKU) Bachelor of Science with Honors Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
Awards
Jun. 2025: Excellent Graduate, Peking University
Dec. 2024: Merit Student, Peking University
Dec. 2024: Huatai Science and Technology Scholarship, Peking University
Dec. 2023: Award for Academic Excellence, Peking University
Dec. 2023: Peking University Scholarship (Third Prize)
Aug. 2023: China Mechanics Competition in Honor of Zhou Peiyuan (Honorable Mention), The Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Chou Pei-yuan Foundation
Oct. 2020: Chinese Chemistry Olympiad in Provinces (First Prize), Chinese Chemical Society
News
August 19, 2026
Our PocketCaBER and PocketDoS paper is now on arXiv! Thank you to all our collaborators for making this possible. Link to the preprint.
August 17-19, 2026
I attend the IUTAM symposium held at Peking University and present a poster/flash talk on our PocketCaBER and PocketDoS project. It is amazing to connect with old friends and meet new ones! I am honored to be selected for one of the Outstanding Poster Awards. A massive thank you to Prof. Kroo for helping me prepare the talk and poster.
March 26, 2026
I attend the UMass CNS Graduate Student Research Symposium and deliver a lightning talk on PocketCaBER and PocketDoS. Huge thank you to Prof. Kroo and my amazing labmates (especially Kumar for helping out with overnight prints). Please keep an eye out for our paper to be published very soon this summer!
November 5, 2025
I am glad to share that I will be joining Professor Laurel Kroo’s lab at UMass PSE. I am excited about both the theory and the experiments to be explored in this new chapter.
September 2, 2025
New semester, new adventure!