UVA profile; Google Scholar; CV

Dr. Liheng Cai (蔡历恒) is an Associate Professor and Copenhaver Fellow at the University of Virginia (UVA), where he currently holds joint appointments in the Department of Materials Science and the Department of Chemical Engineering, as well as courtesy appointments in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry.

Dr. Cai’s career has been dedicated to bridging physical science and biomedical research. In 2006, he received his B.S. in Physics from Lanzhou University, China, where his undergraduate studies focused on particle and quantum field theory. After one year of experimental research in magnetic materials, he decided to switch his focus to research fields closer to biology. In 2007, he began his Ph.D. training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under the mentorship of Prof. Michael Rubinstein in theoretical polymer physics. Simultaneously, he conducted research with Prof. Richard C. Boucher on experimental biophysics, applying soft matter principles and building instruments to better understand human lung defense. Dr. Cai received his Ph.D. in Materials Science in 2012, with a dissertation composed of two distinct areas: theoretical polymer physics and experimental biophysics.

After completing his doctoral studies, Dr. Cai spent one year to build up an experimental laboratory focusing on human lung defense. During this period, he fully discovered his passion for research discoveries enabled by experimentation. This realization led him to transition fully from theory to experimental work. In 2013, he began his postdoctoral training with Prof. David A. Weitz on experimental soft condensed matter physics at Harvard University. In the meantime, he conducted research with Prof. Jeffrey Fredberg on cell mechanics and collective cell migration.

Since 2018, he has led the Soft Biomatter Laboratory at UVA, where his research group focuses on understanding and controlling the interactions between soft (bio)materials and biological systems, with the mission of addressing critical challenges in human health, energy, and sustainability.

Dr. Cai’s honors include the John H. Dillon Medal (APS, 2026), the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2025), the NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA R35) (2024), the ACS PMSE Early Investigator Award (2024), the UVA Research Excellence Award (2023), and the ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award (2020), and the NSF CAREER Award (2019). He has also been recognized as a Soft Matter Emerging Investigator (2020) and an ACS Polymers Au Rising Star (2023). His professional memberships include American Physical Society (APS), American Chemical Society (ACS), Materials Research Society (MRS), American Institute for Chemical Engineers (AIChE), American Thoracic Society (ATS), and Society of Rheology (SoR).