September 2025
A new postdoctoral researcher joined the lab this month: Welcome Wonhyeok Lee! Wonhyeok is joining the lab following receiving his Ph.D. at UW-Madison. Dr. Lee will be working on a combination of projects, including working on the tailorability of biotemplated materials and the creation of fungi-based materials.
June 2025
One new undergraduate student joined the lab: Welcome Annika Juaneza! Annika will be furthering our understanding of biotemplated hybrid (organic-inorganic) samples.
March 2025
A paper, in connection with collaborators at Binghamton University, exploring the creation of networking finite element models to mimic and predict the behavior of fungi-inspired porous materials was just published. This invited paper is highlighted in the special issue “Women in Engineering Materials” of Advanced Engineering Materials. Check it out here.
January 2025
Two new Ph.D. students joined the lab this month! Welcome to Soroosh Salehi and Tianxiang Zhao.
December 2024
Dr. Porter’s recent grant was featured by UC Merced news! Check it out here.
September 2024
Dr. Porter received an award from the DEVCOM Army Research Lab HBCU/SMI Early Career Program! This is a prestigious award for early career faculty at minority serving institutions, like UC Merced. This award will fund further research into biotemplated fungal structures, the creation of composites made from these materials, and the mechanisms at work during loading, damage, and failure. This award comes with a $990,000 grant and will cover research over the next five years.
January 2024
Three undergraduate researchers will be working in the lab this semester: Gordon Mui, Meena-Love White, and Emmely Villalta. Each will be working on biotemplating mushrooms to make porous, hierarchical, silica structures. Welcome to the lab!
September 2023
Steven Choi joined the Porter Bioinspired lab as its first student researcher. He will be working on a project to create a finite element model representing the microstructure of filamentous fungal structures.
July 2023
As of July 2023, Dr. Debora Lyn Porter started her position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Merced. She is actively lookin for graduate and undergraduate researchers to join in working on bioinspired and advanced manufacturing projects.