Biography: Richard (YongQing) Fu is a professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Environment, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, UK. He obtained his PhD degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and then worked as a Research Fellow in Singapore-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alliance, and a Research Associate in University of Cambridge. He was a lecturer in Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK, and then a Reader in Thin Film Centre in University of West of Scotland, Glasgow, UK, before moving to Newcastle, UK in 2015.

He has extensive experience in smart thin films/materials, biomedical microdevices, energy materials, lab-on-chip, micromechanics, MEMS, nanotechnology, sensors and microfluidics. He has established a worldwide reputation from his pioneer research work on shape memory films, piezoelectric thin films, nanostructured composite/films for MEMS, sensors/ actuators, and renewable energy applications.

His research has been funded by Engineering and Physics Science Research Council (EPSRC), Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, Carnegie Trust, UK Fluidic Network, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scottish Government, Scottish Union Physics Alliance (SUPA), Innovate UK/Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), AWE-UK, Scottish Sensor System Centre/CENSIS, Scottish Funding Council, and National Science Foundation of China, etc.

He published over 450 science citation index (SCI) journal papers (including Nat. Comm., Prog. Mater Sci, Adv. Mater., Adv. Funct. Mater., ACS Nano, Adv. Sci., Science Bulletin, Nano Energy, Nano Lett., Mater Horizons, Small, Chem. Mater., J Mater Chem A, Advanced Drug Delivery Review, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews), two books, 20 book chapters, and over 120 conference papers. His current SCI H-index is 62 with over 18 K citations, and his Google scholar H-index is 71 with over 22K citations (up to August 2022).

He has extensive teaching experience in three UK universities with the teaching modules covering Mechanical Engineering, Material Science/Engineering, Physics, Renewable Energy, and Electrical Engineering. He has actively involved in departmental/institutional development in the past 15 years, and served various duties in teaching, research, social and networking activities. He has been external examiners for degree programs for a few UK, Chinese and African universities.  

Being the principle supervisors, he has eight PhD students successfully graduated in UK universities. He is regular reviewers for various research council grants, including EPSRC, European Research grants (COST and FP7), Singapore Government/Research Council grants, Welcome Trust and Cambridge Trust Funding, etc. He has also been invited as external PhD thesis reviewers worldwide and reviewed more than 30 PhD thesis.

He is associate editors/editorial board members for seven international journals including Scientific Report. He is regular journal paper reviewers for more than 40 journals, has co-organized 12 international conferences worldwide, and co-edited six special issues for different journals.

He is now served as the Regional President of International Thin Film Society, and Regional Secretary of Taiwan Thin Film Society, and Committee Member of Chinese Society of Heat Treatment and Metallurgy/Chinese Society of Surface Engineering.