Dr Tian (Tim) Yuan is a Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Research Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London. His research focuses on understanding fluid-cell and fluid-tissue interactions in the brain and tumours, with applications in early/non-invasive diagnosis and precise drug delivery, using both computational modelling and experiments. He is also a member of the MRC-funded LOCATE project, where he develops computational frameworks to predict and optimise localised drug delivery procedures for treating oesophageal cancer.
For more details, please see https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/t.yuan/
Tian Yuan
Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Imperial College London
t.yuan@imperial.ac.uk
Research interests
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Multiscale and multiphysics modelling of fluid and mass transport in brain and cancer tissues
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Experimental characterisation of mechanical and biophysical properties of soft tissues
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Microfluidics and precise flow control
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Image-based modelling of surgical processes
Major Awards and Recognitions
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 Mechnical 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 (1 Position / Department)
2017, 2016, 2013 - National Scholarship x3 times (∼ 0.2% in China, the highest level of scholarship in the country)
2015 - China Classification Society (CCS) Scholarship (2 Positions in the Department)
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 (Top 1 in New Graduate Students)
2015 - Provincial Best Bachelor's Thesis Award, Hubei Province, China
2015, 2014 - First Class Honour Scholarship at WUT (Top 2% / Department)
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)
Grants
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Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Research Fellowship, 2025-2030
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LOCATE: Local Oesophageal CAncer Treatment Engineering to advance the understanding and treatment of oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Funded by MRC, 10/2023-08/2026
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Tracking nano-swimmers in micro-channels. Wings for Ideas Fund 2026 funded by Early Career Researcher Institute at Imperial
Academic Activies and Services
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
2022 - 2023: Graduate Teaching Assistant - Mathematics MECH40008, Mechanical Engineering, IC
2022 - 2023: Graduate Teaching Assistant - Mechanics MECH40009, Mechanical Engineering, IC