Dr Yuyang Gu is an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney.

His research integrates nanophotonics, advanced microscopy and biological imaging. He develops nanomaterials and nanophotonic structures to engineer light–matter interactions and enable new approaches to biological imaging and sensing. His current work focuses on fluorescence dynamics and lifetime engineering, super-resolution microscopy, quantitative bioimaging, and applications in mechanobiology, particularly cell adhesion, mechanosensing and cellular responses to nanoscale physical environments.

Dr Gu received his PhD in Chemical Biology from Fudan University under Prof. Wei Feng and Prof. Fuyou Li. His doctoral research developed rare-earth luminescent nanomaterials and time-resolved optical methods, including lifetime imaging, time-domain optical encoding, and luminescent sensing of oxygen, pH and temperature in cells and in vivo. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. Xiaogang Liu at the National University of Singapore, expanding into lanthanide nanophotonics, energy-transfer engineering and advanced optical imaging.

He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers, including work in Nature Photonics, ACS Nano and Advanced Science, with over 1,000 citations.

Dr Gu independently leads a growing interdisciplinary team and currently supervises two PhD students. Combining expertise in chemistry, materials science, nanophotonics and advanced microscopy, his team develops nanomaterials, photonic platforms and imaging methods for quantitative biological research and mechanobiology.