She earned her Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University and an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis from 2002 - 2007. Amy Shen's research program concerns complex fluids and the processing of these fascinating materials to create morphologies and structures that can find application in the nanotechnology, biotechnology, and energy related materials. Within this broad area, her laboratory takes advantage of the coupling of complex fluid microstructures with the spatial confinement that is possible by using microfluidic flow methods, to offer exquisite morphological control of soft materials.