Rate My Professor Zhenglun Alan Wei

Zhenglun Alan Wei is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, affiliated with the Mechanical Engineering department. He directs the AIMCardio Lab, focusing on integrating artificial intelligence with image-based computational and experimental models for cardiovascular fluid mechanics and cerebrovascular applications. His research workflow involves AI-enhanced medical image processing for flow segmentation, anatomical reconstruction, and feature extraction; data-driven physics-informed flow models; and fluid-structure interaction simulations. Current projects characterize hemodynamics in fetal circulation, congenital heart diseases, and valvular disorders using hybrid physics-AI models; optimize medical device designs including stents, artificial valves, blood pumps, and ventricular assist devices through simulation- and AI-guided pipelines; and support surgical procedures via personalized AI-accelerated computational planning and virtual surgery platforms. Wei teaches fundamentals of biofluids and biosolids, AI-driven algorithms for biological and clinical data, and mentors students on capstone projects addressing challenges from hospitals and the medical device industry.

Prior to WPI, Wei was Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell from 2020 to 2023, where he directed the AIMCardio Lab and served as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Cardiovascular Engineering and Technology. He completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, following postdoctoral fellowship and instructor roles in the Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics Lab there, and holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Technology from the National University of Defense Technology, China. His lab has received major NIH funding: a $1,035,369 R01 grant in 2024 for a groundbreaking cavopulmonary assist device and a $516,556 Trailblazer R21 grant in 2025 for fetal heart disease diagnosis. Key publications include "Can time-averaged flow boundary conditions be used to meet the clinical needs for patient-specific CFD evaluation of Fontan surgical options?" (Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 2017), "Impact of Free-Breathing Phase-Contrast MRI on 4D Flow Assessment of Left Ventricular Outflow Tract After Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement" (JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging, 2020), and "Dynamic nature of the LVOT following transcatheter mitral valve replacement" (European Heart Journal - Cardiovascular Imaging, 2022). His contributions advance personalized therapies through clinician collaborations worldwide.