Dr Tian (Tim) Yuan is a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow and independent Principal Investigator in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London, where he founded and leads the Brain Multiscale and Multiphysics (BM²) Lab. His research focuses on multiscale fluid and molecular transport in biological tissues, particularly the brain and tumours. By integrating mathematical and computational modelling, biomechanics, quantitative imaging, experimental biophysics and artificial intelligence, his group investigates how microstructure, mechanics and biological processes govern transport across scales, with applications in brain physiology, precision drug delivery and personalised medicine.
Dr Yuan also leads computational modelling activities within the MRC-funded LOCATE project, developing predictive and experimentally validated frameworks to understand and optimise localised drug delivery for oesophageal cancer.
For more details, please see https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/t.yuan/
Tian Yuan
Principal Investigator & Group Leader, BM² Lab
Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London
t.yuan@imperial.ac.uk
Selected Awards & Honours
2026 -Department Award for Collegiality & Citizenship at Defender level (An individual who has demonstrated one or more of the core College values in a manner which benefits their immediate peers.)
2026 - Silver Award in Engineering at STEM for Britain 2026 (The event is a national competition for early-career researchers, organised by the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee)
2025 - Margaret Fishenden Centenary Memorial Prize 2025 (Best PhD thesis over the past five year period in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London)
2024 - European Best Doctoral Thesis in Biomechanics Award (1 winner in Europe every year)
2023 - The Great Britain-China Educational Trust Award - for the excellence of my PhD research
2022 - Dr Ashraf Ben El-Shanawany Memorial Prize - the best current PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering
2018 - Outstanding Graduate Student at WUT
2017, 2016, 2013 - National Scholarship x3 times (the highest level of scholarship in the country)
2015 - China Classification Society (CCS) Scholarship
2015 - First Prize in the 14th “Challenge Cup” National Competition of Undergraduate Academic Science and Technology Works (Known as the "Olympic Games" for undergraduates' innovation works in China)
2015 - First Prize in the 10th “Challenge Cup” Provincial Competition of Undergraduate Curricular Academic Science and Technology Works
2015 - Scholarship for Outstanding New Graduate Students
2015 - Provincial Best Bachelor's Thesis Award, Hubei Province, China
2015, 2014 - First Class Honour Scholarship at WUT
2014 - First Prize in the 3rd National competition of Marine Vehicle Design and Manufacture
2012 - American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) Scholarship (1 Position in the Department)
Representative Research Grants
2025-2030: Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Research Fellowship
2023-2026: LOCATE: Local Oesophageal CAncer Treatment Engineering to advance the understanding and treatment of oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Funded by MRC
2025-2026: Tracking nano-swimmers in micro-channels. Wings for Ideas Fund 2026 funded by Early Career Researcher Institute at Imperial
Academic Activities & Leadership
2026: Lead Organiser and Chair of mini-symposium “Multiscale & Multiphysics Approaches in Soft Tissues” in the 17th World Congress on Computational Mechanics and 10th European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering
2025 - 2028: Member of the Junior Editorial Board, BME Frontiers.
2024: Lead Organiser and Chair of workshop “Digital Twins for Robot-assisted Medical Treatments” in the 16th Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics
2023: The Great Exhibition Road Festival exhibitor
2022, 2019: New Scientist Live exhibitor representing Imperial, ExCeL London
2021: Co-ordinator of MedxEng (a monthly webinar about multidisciplinary research on life science, engineering, and mathematics)
2018 - present: Co-ordinator of Alumni Association of Wuhan University of Technology (WUT)
2015 - 2016: Vice Chairman of Science and Technology Association, WUT
Teaching
2026 - present: Module Co-Lead: Mechanics (MECH40009), IC
2022 - 2023: Graduate Teaching Assistant - Mathematics MECH40008, Mechanical Engineering, IC
2022 - 2023: Graduate Teaching Assistant - Mechanics MECH40009, Mechanical Engineering, IC