Joseph Wang

Joseph Wang is an American researcher and inventor. He is Distinguished Professor, SAIC Endowed Chair, and former Chair of the Department of Nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego specializing in nanomachines, biosensors, nanobioelectronics, wearable devices, and electrochemistry. He also serves as the Director of the Center for Wearable Sensors at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
Biography.
Joseph Wang studied chemistry at the Technion and was awarded the BSc degree in 1972 and an MSc degree in 1974. After completing his D.Sc. at the Technion in 1978, he served as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1980, he joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at New Mexico State University, where he became a Regents Professor and holder of the Manasse Chair.
Wang founded the journal "Electroanalysis" (Wiley-VCH) in 1988 and was Editor-in-Chief for three decades until 2018. From 2004 to 2008, he served as the Director of the Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors at the Biodesign Institute and as a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at Arizona State University (ASU). Since 2008, Wang has served as Distinguished Professor of Nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, and as Department Chair between 2014 and 2019.
Fields of research.
Wang's earlier research focused on electrochemical biosensors and detectors for clinical diagnostics and environmental monitoring, with particular emphasis on blood glucose monitoring for diabetes management. His current research interests include the development of nanomotors and nanomachines, wearable non-invasive sensors, electrochemical biosensors, bioelectronics, microfluidic (“Lab-on-a-Chip”) devices, and remote sensors for environmental and security monitoring. His contributions in these directions have been of major impact in the development of electrochemical sensing techniques and man-made nanomachines His books include "Stripping Analysis" (VCH-1985), "Analytical Electrochemistry" (Wiley 2006) and "Nanomachines" (Wiley-VCH 2013).
Wang led a team that successfully merged efforts in the fields of biosensors, bioelectronics and nanotechnology to fashion nanocrystals that can act as amplifying tags for DNA or protein biosensors. His work in the field of nanomachines, involving novel motor designs and applications, has led to the world's fastest nanomotor, first demonstration of nanomotor operation in living organism, a novel motion-based DNA biosensing, and nanomachine-enabled isolation of biological targets, such as cancer cell identification, and advanced motion control in the nanoscale.
Wang has also pioneered the use of body-worn printed flexible electrochemical sensors and biofuel cells (including textile and epidermal-tattoo devices), microneedle-based electrochemical biosensors for real-time, pain-free quantification of circulating metabolites and electrolytes, 'green' bismuth electrodes for sensing toxic metals and remote submersible devices for continuous environmental monitoring. The advances made by Wang's team have been described in over 1200 research papers and reviews, that were cited over 130,000 times, leading to a H Index of 177.
Published books.
Wang has also been the Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Electroanalysis."