Professor Jinah Jang (Department of Convergence IT Engineering and Department of Mechanical Engineering) has recently won the Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineers Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Professor Jang is the only Korean among the 22 awardees this year and is the first Korean in 10 years to win the award.

The award is presented to engineers under the age of 35 who have achieved exceptional accomplishments in manufacturing. Professor Jang is recognized for her contributions to 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering.

Professor Jang received her Ph.D. from POSTECH and was appointed to the POSTECH faculty in 2017 after serving as a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington.

Her primary research focuses on the development and application of tissue-specific decellularized extracellular matrix bioink which is printed in three-dimensional form using a bioprinter after wrapping cells with bioink. Not only is the effectiveness of the material on complex-shaped organs and tissues such as the heart, vessels and pancreatic tissues confirmed to be outstanding, but it also has drawn enormous attention from academic circles and industry due to its capacity to imitate the biochemical and biological composition of tissues.
With her research achievement, Professor Jang published over 95 peer-reviewed papers in authoritative journals. Her H-index and citations have reached 38 and 6,260 respectively, which demonstrate the productivity and influence of her research.

Furthermore, Professor Jang currently serves as an associate editor of the journal Bio-Design and Manufacturing and as a board member of the International Society for Biofabrication (ISBF). She has received the ISBF Young Scientist Award in 2014, the Excellence Award for Young Scientist from the Korea Federation of Women’s Science and Technology Associations (KOFWST) in 2016 and the Medipost New Scientist Award from the Korean Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society (KTERMS) in 2021.

Since 1979, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) has been presenting these awards to manufacturing engineers worldwide aged 35 or younger after evaluating their research achievements such as publications, academic activities, and academic contributions. The Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award is highly regarded for its significant contributions to fostering outstanding manufacturing engineers. The awards ceremony is scheduled to be held at the society’s annual meeting in West Lafayette, Indiana in July 2022.