Orlin D. Velev (Bulgarian: Орлин Д. Велев) (born November 3, 1963, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria) is the INVISTA Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University.

He continued his doctoral studies at Sofia University to earn his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1996, while also spending one year as a researcher at the Nagayama Protein Array project in Japan.

[1][2] He has also discovered and developed new types of self-propelling microdevices, gel-based photovoltaic cells, soft robotic hydrogel actuators and microbot prototypes.

His earlier research achievements include the first report of convective assembly of 2D colloidal crystals, the first templated fabrication of “colloidosome” and supraparticle clusters and the synthesis of "inverse opal” structures.

Velev has served as member of the Editorial Advisory Boards of Langmuir, Chemistry of Materials, Biomicrofluidics, Particle, and Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, and is a fellow of the ACS and MRS.