Dr Xue Chen

Assistant Professor

School: Engineering, Physics and Mathematics

Dr. Xue (Sherry) Chen joined Northumbria University in 2017. She was awarded PhD in Solid Mechanics from École Polytechnique (France) in 2014, after obtaining the Engineer’s Diploma (MEng) from ENSTA ParisTech (France) in 2009 and BEng in Mechanical Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) in 2006. During 2014 ~ 2016, she worked at University of Toronto (Canada) as a postdoctoral researcher.

The research interests of Dr. Chen cover the mechanics and physics of smart materials and soft matter, focusing on studying the energy conversion behaviours of materials, developing multi-scale modelling tools, and designing and modelling smart-materials-based flexible sensors, actuators, energy harvesters, etc.

Email Xue

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Mechanics and physics of smart materials and soft matter

Multi-physics coupling behaviours in smart materials
Energy conversion behaviours in smart materials
Instability behaviours in soft materials
Multi-scale modelling for material behaviours
Design and development of novel smart materials and structures for energy applications
Design, modelling and optimization of smart-materials-based flexible devices

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
A Natural Lignification Inspired Super-Hard Wood-based Composites with Extreme Resilience, Huang, Y., Jiang, K., He, Y., Hu, J., Dyer, K., Chen, S., Akinlabi, E., Zhang, D., Zhang, X., Yu, Y., Yu, W., Xu, B. 12 May 2025, In: Advanced Materials
A Semi-transparent Strong Biomimetic Wound Healing Material: Zinc Oxide and Sodium Alginate Based Bi-layer Nanofiber Membrane, Kuddushi, M., Kumar, T., Wu, H., Chen, S., Xu, B., Malek, N., Unsworth, L., Xu, J., Zhang, J., Wang, X., Zhang, X. 20 Feb 2025, In: Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials
Key mechanisms to mechanically improve polyacrylamide-based hydrogels, Liu, J., Chen, X., Zhang, C., Maitournam, H., He, Y. 1 Aug 2025, In: Journal of Polymer Science
Soft Gel-Based Transformative Structured Engineering Design, Jiang, K., Chen, S., Dai, C., Xu, B. 21 Nov 2025, In: Accounts of Materials Research
Stability of propagating Austenite-Martensite interface in Ni-Mn-Ga single crystal, Gao, X., Zhang, C., Chen, S., Brisset, F., Hubert, O., He, Y. 10 Aug 2025, In: Journal of Alloys and Compounds
Supramolecular Zwitterionic Hydrogels for Information Encryption, Soft Electronics and Energy Storage at Icy Temperature, Wang, G., Ni, H., Li, Y., Torun, H., Chen, S., Shahzad, M., Zhang, X., Zheng, S., Xu, B., Yang, J. 28 Aug 2025, In: Advanced Functional Materials
Austenite-martensite interfacial patterns and energy dissipation of phase transformation in Ni-Mn-Ga single crystal, Zhang, C., Chen, X., Gao, X., Brisset, F., Hubert, O., He, Y. 1 Dec 2024, In: Acta Materialia
Characterization on thermal hysteresis of shape memory alloys via macroscopic interface propagation, Zhang, C., Chen, X., Hubert, O., He, Y. 1 Mar 2024, In: Materialia
Microstructure-Reconfigured Graphene Oxide Aerogel Metamaterials for Ultrarobust Directional Sensing at Human–Machine Interfaces, Wang, Y., Qin, Z., Wang, D., Liu, D., Wang, Z., Jazzar, A., He, P., Guo, Z., Chen, S., Jia, C., He, X., Zhang, X., Xu, B., Chen, F. 25 Sep 2024, In: Nano Letters
Tough, Waterproofing, and Sustainable Bio-Adhesive Inspired by the Dragonfly Wing, Zhou, Y., Luo, J., Jing, Q., Ge, S., Chen, S., Guo, Z., Li, J., Liu, Z., He, P., He, X., Xu, B. 15 Oct 2024, In: Advanced Functional Materials