James Friend

James Friend is a Professor at the University of California-San Diego in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Currently Adjunct Professor and formerly a Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow and founding director of the $35 million, 1200 sqm cleanroom and biolab MicroNano Research Facility at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, he has over 260 peer-reviewed research publications, including 129 journal papers and eight book chapters, and 25 patents in process or granted, completed 31 postgraduate students and supervised 18 postdoctoral staff, and been awarded over $25 million in competitive grant-based research funding over his career.

He received excellence in teaching, early career research, and research awards from the Monash Faculty of Engineering in 2006, 2008, and 2011, respectively, a Future Leader award from the Davos Future Summit in 2008, and was awarded as a Top 10 emerging scientific leader of Australia by Microsoft and The Australian newspaper in 2009.

Funded by the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the CSIRO, and various philanthropic organisations and companies, his research covers fundamental and applied studies on the interaction of electromechanical fields in novel materials and across solid-solid, fluid-solid, and fluid-fluid interfaces at the micro and nano scale. The applications of this research are principally oriented towards biomedical needs.