Rate My Professor David Long

David Long, Ph.D., serves as Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Biomedical Engineering within Wichita State University’s College of Engineering. He joined the institution on January 3, 2017, bringing extensive prior experience from international roles. Previously, from 2009 to 2016, he was Principal Investigator at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Auckland, and Associate Investigator in the Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiscovery. Before that, Long completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, where his research centered on cardiovascular mechanobiology. His academic journey includes a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University, followed by M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His doctoral thesis focused on microvascular hemodynamics and the endothelial glycocalyx.

Long’s research program emphasizes cardiovascular mechanobiology, cell-tissue biophysics, and the development of instrumentation and devices to probe cell and tissue mechanobiology. Additional interests encompass identifying novel surrogate markers of diseases, gene regulation, epigenetics, cell and tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. He leads the Mechanobiology and Biomedicine Lab, pursuing goals to uncover fundamental mechanobiological mechanisms pertinent to human health, innovate techniques for disease treatment and prevention, and advance virtual models of cells. Long collaborates with researchers in Germany, Denmark, and the United States. In teaching, he covers Mechanobiology of Cells and Tissues, Introduction to Biofluids, and Biomolecular and Cellular Engineering. He earned the 2023 University Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 2020 John A. See Innovation Award for collaborative work on superhydophilic nanofiber desiccants for enhanced food and drug packaging. Notable publications include 'Human dermal microvascular endothelial cell morphological responses to fluid shear stress' (Microvascular Research, 2022) and 'Discrete Protein Metric (DPM): A new image similarity metric for protein quantitation' (2022), alongside earlier contributions such as 'Serum levels of endothelial glycocalyx constituents in women with gestational diabetes' (BMJ Open, 2016).