Welcome to my personal website!
I’m a Postdoctoral Research Associate from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, where I work with Prof. Glaucio H. Paulino. My research vision is to advance the design and manufacture of reconfigurable structural systems whose properties are dominated by their forms. I aim to establish the geometric mechanics that enable theory-driven design, efficient simulation, reliable fabrication, and controlled actuation of reconfigurable structures and metamaterials, particularly those that are three-dimensional, irregular, and super-modular, and those inspired by origami, kirigami, and tensegrity.
News
- Oct.2025: I gave the oral presentation “‘Folded kirigami’ to flexible mechanical metamaterials” for the Soft Materials Coffee Hour (SMatCH) Seminar at Princeton University.
- Oct.2025: I gave the oral presentation “‘Folded kirigami’ to flexible mechanical metamaterials” at the Society of Engineering Science 2025 Annual Technical Meeting in Atlanta.
- Oct.2025: I presented the poster “Geometric mechanics of reconfigurable structural systems” at the Society of Engineering Science 2025 Annual Technical Meeting Future Faculty Symposium in Atlanta.
- Sep.2025: Our review paper “Kirigami engineering: The interplay between geometry and mechanics” was published in Applied Mechanics Reviews.
- Jun.2025: I received the Future Faculty Symposium Travel Award from the 2025 SES Annual Technical Meeting.
- Apr.2025: Princeton Engineering reported our modular chiral origami metamaterials.
- Apr.2025: Nature reported our modular chiral origami metamaterials.
- Apr.2025: Nature published a video for our modular chiral origami metamaterials.
- Apr.2025: Our research article “Modular chiral origami metamaterials” was published in Nature.
- Apr.2025: Our research article “Shape and topology morphing of closed surfaces integrating origami and kirigami” was published in Science Advances.
- Jan.2025: Princeton Engineering reported our folded kirigami.
- Dec.2024: PNAS published a commentary on our folded kirigami.
- Nov.2024: Our reserach article “Folding a single high-genus surface into a repertoire of metamaterial functionalities” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Apr.2024: We made the cover of Proceedings of the Royal Society A.
- Apr.2024: Our reserach article “Axisymmetric blockfold origami: a non-flat-foldable Miura variant with self-locking mechanisms and enhanced stiffness” was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A.
Research
1. Two-dimensional irregular reconfigurable systems
- Rigidly deployable planar kirigami structures
- Bistable spherical kirigami structures
2. Systems shifting from two-dimensional to three-dimensional configurations
- “Folded kirigami” flexible metamaterials
- Axisymmetric origami structures
- Rigidly and flat foldable origami structures
3. Three-dimensional irregular reconfigurable systems
- Bistable closed-surface assemblies
- Modular chiral origami mechanical metamaterials
Publications
- Xiangxin Dang, Glaucio H. Paulino, Kirigami engineering: The interplay between geometry and mechanics, Applied Mechanics Reviews 77, 050801 (2025). [PDF]
- Xiangxin Dang, Shujia Chen, Ali Elias Acha, Lei Wu, Damiano Pasini, Shape and topology morphing of closed surfaces integrating origami and kirigami, Science Advances 11, eads5659 (2025). [PDF] [SI] [Movie S1] [Movie S2] [Movie S3] [Movie S4] [Movie S5]
- Tuo Zhao*, Xiangxin Dang*, Konstantinos Manos, Shixi Zang, Jyotirmoy Mandal, Minjie Chen, Glaucio H. Paulino, Modular chiral origami metamaterials, Nature 640, 931–940 (*Contributed equally) (2025). [PDF] [SI] [Movie S1] [Movie S2] [Movie S3] [Movie S4] [Movie S5] [Movie S6] [Code] [Nature News & Views] [Nature Video]
- Xiangxin Dang, Stefano Gonella, Glaucio H. Paulino, Folding a single high-genus surface into a repertoire of metamaterial functionalities, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(46), e2413370121 (2024). [PDF] [SI] [Movie S1] [Movie S2] [Movie S3] [Movie S4] [Movie S5] [PNAS Commentary]
- Xiangxin Dang, Glaucio H. Paulino, Axisymmetric blockfold origami: a non-flat-foldable Miura variant with self-locking mechanisms and enhanced stiffness, Proceedings of the Royal Society A 480, 20230956 (2024). [PDF] [Movie S1] [Cover Image]
- Xiangxin Dang, Lu Lu, Huiling Duan, Jianxiang Wang, Deployment kinematics of axisymmetric Miura origami: Unit cells, tessellations, and stacked metamaterials, International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 232, 107615 (2022). [PDF]
- Xiangxin Dang, Fan Feng, Huiling Duan, Jianxiang Wang, Theorem on the compatibility of spherical kirigami tessellations, Physical Review Letters 128, 035501 (2022). [PDF] [SI] [Movie S1]
- Lu Lu, Xiangxin Dang, Fan Feng, Pengyu Lv, Huiling Duan, Conical Kresling origami and its applications to curvature and energy programming, Proceedings of the Royal Society A 478, 20210712 (2022). [PDF]
- Xiangxin Dang, Fan Feng, Paul Plucinsky, Richard D. James, Huiling Duan, Jianxiang Wang, Inverse design of deployable origami structures that approximate a general surface, International Journal of Solids and Structures 234–235, 111224 (2022). [PDF] [Movie S1] [Movie S2] [Movie S3] [Movie S4] [Movie S5] [Movie S6] [Movie S7]
- Xiangxin Dang, Fan Feng, Huiling Duan, Jianxiang Wang, Theorem for the design of deployable kirigami tessellations with different topologies, Physical Review E 104, 055006 (2021). [PDF]
- Fan Feng, Xiangxin Dang, Richard D. James, Paul Plucinsky, The designs and deformations of rigidly and flat-foldable quadrilateral mesh origami, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 142, 104018 (2020). [PDF]
- Xiangxin Dang, Yingjie Liu, Linjuan Wang, Jianxiang Wang, Solutions of the elastic fields in a half-plane region containing multiple inhomogeneities with the equivalent inclusion method and the applications to properties of composites, Acta Mechanica 230, 1529–1547 (2019). [PDF]
Biography
Education
- Ph.D in Solid Mechanics, Peking University, 2022
- B.Eng. in Engineering Mechanics, Peking University, 2017
Employment
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, Princeton University, 2023 - Present
- Postdoctoral Researcher, McGill University, 2022 - 2023
Awards
- Future Faculty Symposium Travel Award, SES Annual Technical Meeting (2025)
- Merit Student, Peking University (2021)
- Dean Scholarship, College of Engineering, Peking University (2021)
- Award for Scientific Research, Peking University (2019)
- Presidential Scholarship, Peking University (2018, 2017)
- Excellent Graduate, Peking University (2017)
- Award for Academic Excellence, Peking University (2016, 2015)
- May 4th Scholarship, Peking University (2015)
Contact
Email: xd7191@princeton.edu