Faculty

Yu-Chong Tai

Anna L. Rosen Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering; Andrew and Peggy Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair; Executive Officer for Medical Engineering

Degrees and Appointments

B.S., National Taiwan University, 1981; M.S., University of California, 1986; Ph.D., 1989. Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, Caltech, 1989-95; Associate Professor, 1995-2000; Professor, 2000-05; Professor of Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, 2005-13; Rosen Professor, 2013-; Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair, 2017-; Executive Officer for Electrical Engineering, 2005-2008; Executive Officer for Medical Engineering, 2013-.

Research Overview

Professor Tai’s research uses MEMS/NEMS technologies for medical applications. He has built the Caltech MEMS Laboratory (http://mems.caltech.edu), an 8,000-square-foot facility completely dedicated to medical devices. This facility has a clean-room (~3,000 sq. ft), CAD lab, a measurement/test/metrology lab, and a biological lab. It supports more than 20 researchers (graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, visiting scholars and industrial members) to develop innovative MEMS/NEMS and medical devices. Examples of MEMS/NEMS devices include micromotors, microphones, neural chips, micro relays, micro power generators, micro valves, micro pumps, etc. Over the past 15 years, Prof. Tai has launched a major research effort to apply all these technologies to medical devices. Research examples include HPLC-on-a-chip, blood-labs-on-a-chip, and micro drug delivery. More specifically, Tai’s group has had a major program for miniature or micro implants. To this end, Prof. Tai collaborates with many medical doctors and biologist (such as from USC, UCLA, and industries) to develop integrated implants for cortical, retinal and spinal applications. Micro implant devices included spinal neural stimulators, ECG implants, retinal prosthetic devices, intraocular lenses, etc. Tai's group is always looking for students, postdocs and researchers who love technology and enjoy building medical devices.

List of Research Areas

Medical devices, MEMS, Bio-MEMS, Micromachining, lab-on-a-chip, microfluidics, drug delivery, micro implants, circulating tumor cell, parylene, Bio-med

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