Dr Yabin Liu

Lecturer in Engineering

Research interests

Engineering

Contact details

yabin.liu@kcl.ac.uk

Yabin Liu

Biography

Yabin Liu is a Lecturer in Engineering in the Department of Engineering, King’s College London.

Yabin’s group focuses on vortex dynamics and advanced flow-control strategies for vortex-induced challenges, including wakes, cavitation, unsteady loading, and noise. The research spans a range of rotor- and wing-based systems, with applications to wind turbines, tidal turbines, propellers, and aircraft wings.

The group is actively seeking new members, including PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and visiting researchers. Several fully funded PhD studentships and postdoctoral positions are expected to be available, with start dates between early 2027 and late 2028. Prospective candidates and potential collaborators are warmly encouraged to get in touch by email.

Yabin has recently been awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant (€1.5 million, 2027–2032) and holds the highly competitive 1851 Brunel Fellowship (2023–2026), which is awarded to only one recipient each year. As PI, he has secured approximately £2 million in research funding within five years of completing his PhD.

He maintains active collaborations with leading researchers across the UK, Europe, and Asia, including colleagues at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Birmingham, TU Delft, CNR, Tsinghua, and institutions in Tokyo, as well as with major stakeholders across the renewable and green-energy sectors. He also serves as Deputy of the Early-Career Research Committee within the UK Supergen ORE Hub.

Yabin obtained his doctoral degree from Tsinghua University in 2021, receiving both the Outstanding Doctoral Thesis prize and the Beijing Outstanding Graduate prize. He studied at the University of Cambridge as a sponsored visiting PhD student for one year. From September 2021 to August 2023, he worked as a Research Associate at the University of Edinburgh on the EPSRC Morphing Blades project and explored gust mitigation through morphing surfaces through fluid-structure interaction simulation. Afterwards, he started his independent research journey as the first 1851 Brunel Fellow at Edinburgh. From November 2024, he moved to Cambridge as an Assistant Research Professor and 1851 Brunel Fellow, and he joined King’s from April 2026.

He has a distinguished peer-reviewed publication record, with 3 ESI Highly-Cited/Hot papers, and was honoured as a ScholarGPS Highly-Ranked Scholar (top 0.05% globally). He won many prestigious scholarships and prizes, including the HiWin Doctoral Dissertation Award, the most prestigious prize for PhD graduates in Mechanical Engineering in China, and the Chung-Hua Wu Outstanding Graduate Prize, the highest domestic honour in his major with ~9 students awarded annually. He was the winner of the Young Professionals Green Energy Awards 2024 and shortlisted as a finalist for the Scottish Green Energy Awards 2024, the UK's largest celebration of the renewable energy industry.