Mechanical Engineering · NC State University
I’m Huiqin (Hermine) Ni, a Mechanical Engineering PhD researcher at North Carolina State University.
Responsive materials.
Functional interfaces.
My research focuses on how polymer chemistry and surface design control liquid motion and adhesion—from slippery coatings to responsive soft materials.
Training Materials science, chemical engineering, applied physics, and mechanical engineering, with academic experience in China, Finland, and the United States.
Capabilities Experimental design, materials fabrication and characterization, data analysis, and technical communication.
01 / Research
Research areas, my contributions, and general skills.
Research in responsive polymer surfaces and their interfacial behavior.
I contribute materials fabrication, experimental design, surface characterization, and data analysis — experience transferable to multidisciplinary R&D and technical problem-solving.
Investigating functional polymer coatings and surface wetting behavior.
I contribute materials preparation, experimental design, surface characterization, and analysis of wetting behavior — combining hands-on experimentation with structured data interpretation.
Investigating adhesion at soft polymer and hydrogel interfaces.
I design comparative experiments and contribute materials characterization and analysis — applying systematic comparison to complex soft-interface problems.
Oct 2022–Jun 2024 · China University of Petroleum / Aalto
Investigated responsive shape-memory polymers for soft actuation, with contributions to fabrication, characterization, mechanical testing, and manuscript preparation.
Oct 2022–Jun 2023 · Aalto University
Compared solvent-exchange conditions for MXene processing toward printed and wearable electronics.
Dec 2020–Jan 2022 · China University of Petroleum
Developed gecko-inspired PDMS surfaces for reversible gripping; contributed sample fabrication, characterization, and manuscript drafting.
2019–2022 · China University of Petroleum
Investigated PNIPAM-based nanocomposite hydrogel actuation and oxygen-vacancy/heterojunction effects in BiOBr photocatalysts.
02 / Publications
Peer-reviewed articles · My name is highlighted.
Materials Horizons · 13(6), 2946–2957
Chemical Engineering Journal · 431, 134081
Carbon Neutrality · 1, 13
Materials Today Physics · 29, 100919
Additional manuscript and book contributions are listed in my CV.
03 / Professional
Technology, entrepreneurship, teaching, and communication beyond research.
Technology entrepreneurship · 2026
Developing concepts for a sensor-integrated robotic platform for commercial applications.
My work connects customer discovery with system concepts, engineering trade-off analysis, and bill-of-materials planning.
NC State · Fall 2026
I teach two undergraduate engineering laboratory sections and guide students through experiments, data analysis, and technical reporting.
I grade assignments using departmental criteria and support students through office hours.
Communication & computation
My experience includes science communication with DeepTech and LLM-related training and evaluation projects.
I also work with Python, MATLAB, Linux, and engineering tools. I share code, projects, and ongoing learning on GitHub.
04 / Personal Life · Writing
Writing, photography, and a life shaped by movement and curiosity.
Engineer by training, writer by curiosity.
I write to make sense of ideas — from technology and learning to identity, culture, and becoming.
Hermine Ni
Substack — long-form essays and reflections
X — ideas, observations, and thinking in motion
05 / Photography
Light, color, and quiet corners around campus and its surroundings.
Photographs by Huiqin (Hermine) Ni. Select an image to view it in full.
06 / Life in Motion
Movement, exploration, and the places that keep me curious.
Movement is how I stay curious — across cities, mountains, water, and unfamiliar ground.
Movement keeps me curious, grounded, and open to the world. Whether climbing, swimming, hiking, trying a new sport, or simply walking somewhere I have never been, I am drawn to experiences that ask me to pay attention, adapt, and keep going.
07 / About
Across different disciplines, institutions, and countries, I have learned to move between ways of thinking — from materials and experiments to technology, communication, and human experience.
What connects these paths is a curiosity about interfaces: where materials become functions, ideas become useful, and different perspectives meet.
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering
Raleigh, United States
Visiting Student, Applied Physics
Helsinki, Finland
M.S. in Chemical Engineering and Technology
Beijing, China
B.Eng. in Materials Science and Engineering
Rank: 2/84 · Beijing, China