Supported by Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), Dr Haibao Liu will work with researchers at McGill University, Imperial College, Yale University and Aarhus University, to investigate how the architecture of plant leaves accomplishes both mechanical stability and optimisation for photosynthesis.

Dr Haibao Liu will contribute to the leaf architecture inspired design of engineering sandwich structures. Through a parameterised modeling approach, computational models will be fitted to a variety of leaf architectures observed in different plant species and their mutants. The goal is to create models with meaningful accuracy and flexibility to predict the effects of overall mesophyll anatomical features on overall leaf stability.