Patrick  is a passionate researcher for smart sensors and sensing systems, in which he incorporates his scientific and engineering understanding of structures and people.  He is particularly interested in combining knowledge in civil engineering and other disciplines (e.g. nanotechnology, computer vision, electrical engineering, and material science) to convert traditional structures into more intelligent systems with a “perception” of structures and surrounding environment.  

He has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in Smart Cities in the CECE department at the University of Central Florida starting Fall 2020. He is the Director of Sun RISE Lab @UCF.He served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in CEE department at the University of Michigan.  His current research is on people-centered smart city studies and computer vision-aided context-aware systems for urban planning.  

Dr. Sun obtained his Ph.D. in Civil/Structural engineering from Rice University, where he developed a novel coating, Smart Skin, for wireless strain sensing and damage identification on structures (e.g. buildings and infrastructures).  He obtained his M.S. in Structural/Earthquake Engineering and B.S. in Civil Engineering from Southeast University. 

He has received the Bruce Deal and Andy Grove Young Author Award (2017) from the Electrochemical Society (ECS), SCI Transdisciplinary Symposium Award (2016), and Best Award in CEVE/MECH/MSNE of Rice Research Screech Competition (2015) from Rice University, Student Travel Award (2016) from American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT), etc.