According to the Award Measures of the International Society of Bionic Engineering (ISBE), the nomination period for the International Bionic Engineering Award 2016 was started in the end of 2014, and a total of 34 nominations have been received by the deadline 30th September 2015(10 for Contribution Award, 12 for Youth Award, and 12 for Student Award).

The Award selection is based on evidence of research excellence and creativity in bionic engineer and the potential contribution to the discipline development. After rigorous review by the Award Committee comprising worldwide distinguished experts, Prof. Daniel Weihs and Prof. Yongmei Zheng were selected as winners of Outstanding Contribution Award, Ass. Prof. Zuankai Wang and Prof. Zhiguang Guo were selected as winners of Outstanding Youth Award, and Mr. Hamed Rajabi Jorshari and Mr. Jianing Wu were selected as winners of Outstanding Student Award.

The general information of the winners was provided below, and any complaints are welcomed to submit to secretariat@isbe-online.org by 15th January, 2016.

Outstanding Contribution Award

1. Daniel Weihs

Mr. Daniel Weihs is a professor at Israel Institute of Technology. His research works focus on bionic-biomechanical properties of living creatures.

During the last 40 years he was the first to analyze non-steady locomotion-fast starts turning stability and maneuvering. He is the author of about 80 papers in these areas, as well as in bird flight, microorganism swimming, ecology, etc., in addition to a similar number of publications in other engineering areas. Four of his publications have been included in Nature (Two in 1973, One in 1980, and One in 1999). His papers have been quoted over 4000 times in the literature with several breakthrough papers quoted over 200 times.

He has been invited as the Plenary or Keynote speakers for more than 50 times, and his book “Fish Biomechanics” published in 1983 is a summarization of his researches. 

2. Yongmei Zheng

Mrs. Yongmei Zheng is a professor at Beihang University of China. Her research interests are mainly focused on biological and bioinspired surfaces.

She has revealed the wetting mechanism in cooperative effect of micro-/nano-structures, and developed the surfaces with characteristics of water repellency, anti-icing, anti-frosting, fog-harvesting, tiny droplet transport etc. In recent years, she has 90 SCI publications in total with 12 Cover stories (IF>40=1, IF>17=9). Publications are included in Nature, Adv. Mater., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. etc. Her contributions have been cited in Nature, Science, Nat. Mater., etc. and highlighted by Nature News and Chemistry World.

The achievement of her research has been summarized and brought together in a recent book publication “Bioinspired Wettability Surfaces: Development in Micro- and Nanostructures”. 

Outstanding Youth Award

1. Zuankai Wang

Mr. Zuankai Wang is an associate professor at City University of Hong Kong. His studies focus on bionic machinery and biomimetic surfaces.

Over the past several years, he has made seminal contributions to the cutting-edge research area of bionic engineering, particularly in the fundamental understanding of interfacial and transport phenomena underlying the natural/artificial systems and applying the insights to rationally develop interfacial materials for multifunctional applications. His publications are included in Nature Physics (2), Nature Communications (2), Sci Reports, etc. (IF>20=2, IF>10=7). The Papers are high impact with several cited ca. 100-150 times.

He was selected as “Ten Future Leaders” by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2013. He has also been making contributions to the field via appointment to editorial boards (Sci reports and Adv Eng Mater).

2. Zhiguang Guo

Mr. Zhiguang Guo is a professor at Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). His researches mainly focus on biomimetic materials.

Since 2010 he has published more than 100 papers about the biomimetic materials and their interfaces in journals such as Chem. Soc. Rev. (IF=33.4), J Mat Res, Chem Commun, App Phys Letters, J Plant Sci etc with high impact and breadth (IF>6=24, IF>3=55). The publications have been quoted over 2100 times with several papers quoted over 200 times. One of his contributions “Stable Biomimetic Superhydrophobic Engineering Materials” was reported by NATURE as research highlight.

He obtained the second prize of National Natural Science Award (Rank Second) of China in 2015. Besides, he got The 100 Talents Project of CAS in 2012 and was further supported by the excellent young scientist foundation of NSFC in 2016.

Outstanding Student Award

1.  Hamed Rajabi Jorshari

Mr. Hamed Rajabi Jorshari is a PhD student at Kiel University of Germany. His major research areas are biomechanics and bionic design.

After graduation from Master’s program, he has established the Biomimetic Engineering Group of the University of Guilan together with Prof. Darvizeh in 2011 (www.biomimeticslab.ir). In 2014, he got a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to join the Functional Morphology and Biomechanics institute at Kiel University. He worked on a variety of projects which enabled him to publish more than 40 journal and conference articles (IF>2=5, IF>1=9).

He has been always taking part in the organizing work of the graduates innovation competitions and academic communication conferences. He also serves as the reviewer for several scientific journals. 

2. Jianing Wu

Mr. Jianing Wu is a PhD student at Tsinghua University of China. His research interests are focused on biomechanical and biomaterials properties.

Based on his own development of a number of apparatus and his background in mechanical engineering, he has contributed delightful studies on “technical” aspects of insect feeding behavior. His further studies including section-wise wettability of the honeybee’s tongue and drag reduction in the mouthpart of a honeybee show a lot of creativity and have been published in several well journals (IF>3=3, IF>1=5). He has travelled to Canada and USA over the past three years to carry out the cooperative study.

He has won a number of awards and honors including National Scholarship of Graduate Students, Young Scholar of Distinction of Graduates (only 10 students got this award in Tsinghua University in 2014), and First Prize at the Annual Conference of the State Key Laboratory of Tsinghua University etc.