A member of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the Cullen College of Engineering has received recognition from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the Department of Energy for his research and proposals.
Meng Wang, an associate professor, was part of a team selected as the 2026 winner of the David Dornfeld Manufacturing Vision Award through the NSF Manufacturing Blue Sky Competition, organized by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). The team also included associate professors Mostafa Bedewy from the University of Pittsburgh and Won Min Park from Kansas State University.
A PDF of their presentation, “Protein-Based Manufacturing (ProMan): Programming Matter through Molecular Information,” is available here.
“The competition focuses on bold and transformative ideas that could shape the future of manufacturing,” Wang said. “Our concept explores the use of proteins as programmable building blocks for future manufacturing.”
In a separate recognition, Wang also had a proposal selected for the inaugural Critical Minerals & Materials Joint Research Portfolio of the DOE Joint Genome Institute and Molecular Foundry. “Developing a Cell-Based Fitness Assay for High-Throughput Assessment of Ferritin Metal-Selectivity and Engineering” is one of 20 picked for this new collaborative user program. Selection gives Wang access to both DOE Office of Science user facilities for the research.
“Critical minerals are essential to many energy technologies, but separating them efficiently from complex recycling streams remains a major challenge,” Wang said. “Through this joint program, we will collaborate with the Molecular Foundry and JGI to develop a high-throughput assay for screening hundreds of ferritins, natural protein cages that can capture metals, and identifying those with improved selectivity. The work will also help us better understand the molecular features that control how ferritins distinguish among different metals, ultimately supporting the development of more efficient and sustainable approaches to critical mineral recovery.
“I’m especially grateful to professor Roberto Ballarini, our department chair, and professor Devin Shaffer, my faculty mentor, for their thoughtful guidance and continued encouragement,” Wang said. “I’m also thankful to my group members, whose dedication, creativity and hard work make so much of our research possible.”
Wang joined the faculty of Cullen for the Fall 2025 semester. Previously, he was an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh for five years. Wang earned an NSF CAREER award in 2025 for his research, “Advancing Biodegradation Through Protein Nanocompartment-Based Cargo Encapsulation for Organic Contaminant Removal.”
Wang’s lab is focused on research that integrates experimental and computational approaches, such as synthetic biology, bionanotechnology and machine learning, to advance the understanding of biological processes at the molecular level. The goal is to translate this knowledge into sustainable biotechnologies for environmental challenges in clean water and energy, climate change mitigation and zero waste.