John Liu is the Director and Principal Investigator of the MIT Learning Engineering and Practice (LEAP) Group, which investigates the intersection of human-centered technologies and engineering workforce development. He is a Principal Research Scientist in MIT’s Mechanical Engineering department. He leads education and workforce development efforts for MIT’s new campus-wide Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM). He was the Director of the Principles of Manufacturing MicroMasters program, an online certificate program that has now enrolled over 200,000 learners across the globe.

His research has received recognition from ASEE, ACM CHI, and IEEE DEMOCon. He has co-authored dozens of publications and currently serves as an executive guest editor for Manufacturing Letters. John earned his B.S. in Applied Physics from Caltech and S.M. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, under an MIT-SUTD fellowship and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. His research is supported by the Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Schmidt Futures, National Science Foundation, NAMTECH, and industry partners.