[4] Shields continued his academic career as a Postdoctoral Associate in Chemical and Biological Engineering at North Carolina State University where he worked with Orlin D. Velev in 2017.
At Harvard's Wyss Institute, Shields developed cytokine-releasing macrophage "backpacks" that maintain a tumor-killing state in cells, travel to tumor sites, and slow their growth.
Working at the intersection of materials, soft matter physics, and bioengineering, Shields' research has focused on understanding how stimuli-responsive particles behave in physiological settings and how to control their assembly and motion for biological applications.
[9] Current research includes investigating the role of immune cells in decompression sickness using lung-on-a-chip devices,[10][11] developing "bottom-up" multifunctional magnetic microrobots,[12][13] and using acoustically responsive particles for capture and purification of disease biomarkers.
For several years, his group has partnered with a local high school on Senior Design engineering projects[22] and launching a Reverse Science Fair.