Dr. Jessica Liu has been named a 2025 STAT Wunderkind, an honor that celebrates the most promising early-career researchers in health and medicine across North America.
Dr. Liu, who joined our faculty in the Summer of 2025, Liu aims to connect the bioengineering and clinical worlds—applying AI, device innovation, and translational science to personalize anesthesia and improve care delivery across all settings. Read more about Dr. Liu’s award here.
Dr. Liu completed her fellowship in adult cardiothoracic anesthesiology at Duke University, following her anesthesiology residency in the Academic Career Enrichment Scholars (ACES) track. She holds an MD and PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Biological Engineering from MIT.
As a physician-scientist and bioengineer, Dr. Liu bridges clinical practice with engineering innovation. Her work includes the development of cutting-edge devices to isolate and analyze small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) for use in point-of-care diagnostics, with recent first-author research published in Cyborg and Bionic Systems (2025). This platform offers sensitive, real-time biomarker detection with far-reaching implications in cancer diagnostics, disease monitoring, and perioperative care.
Her research portfolio spans publications in ACS Nano, Science Advances, and Science Translational Medicine, and she is an inventor on multiple biomedical patents. She has also contributed to leadership and education through roles in the Feagin Leadership Program and simulation-based training.
"What distinguishes Dr. Liu is her remarkable ability to integrate rigorous engineering innovation with clinically relevant problem-solving. Given the increasing need to link new developments in technology and clinical medicine, Dr. Liu embodies the next generation of clinician-(bio)engineers who are redefining precision care. She is not only a Wunderkind in title but in fact—merging invention, scholarship, and compassion with clarity of vision." -Simon C. Robson, MD, PhD