Yonggang Huang


Yonggang Huang is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Engineering at Northwestern University.

Education and career

Yonggang Huang received his BS degree in mechanics from Peking University in 1984. He moved to the United States to study engineering science in 1986, and earned his ScM and PhD degrees in engineering science from Harvard University in 1987 and 1990, respectively. He stayed at Harvard as a post-doctoral fellow for one year, and joined the University of Arizona as an assistant professor in 1991. He moved to Michigan Technological University as an associate professor in 1995, and to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998. He was promoted to full professor in 2001, Grayce Wicall Gauthier Professor in 2003, and Shao Lee Soo Professor in 2004, at UIUC. He joined Northwestern University as the Joseph Cummings Professor in 2007, and has been the Walter P. Murphy Professor since 2015.

Research interests

Huang has been working on mechanics of materials and structures across multiple scales, such as the mechanism-based strain gradient plasticity theory, and atomistic-based continuum theory for carbon nanotubes. In recent years he has focused on mechanics and thermal analysis of stretchable and dissolvable electronics with applications to energy harvesting and medicine, and mechanically guided, deterministic 3D assembly. His work on the electronic tattoos has been reported by NBC Learn.

Service to the academic societies

Since 2011, he has been the editor-in-chief of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Letters.
Huang is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Mechanics, and has transformed the journal to be the fastest one in mechanics. For example, among all papers submitted in 2017, the average time from submission to final decision is less than 16 days, which include the time for review and the time for the authors’ revision.
He was the president of the Society of Engineering Sciences ; the Chair and a member of the Executive Committee of the Applied Mechanics Division, a member of the Drucker Medal Committee and Nadai Medal Committee, ASME; a member of the Awards Committee and Nomination Committee of the Engineering Mechanics Institute, and Bazant Medal Committee, American Society of Civil Engineers. He is a member of the Eshelby Award Committee ; the US National Committee of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, the Pi Tau Sigma Awards Committee and the Award Committee of the Applied Mechanics Division, ASME.

Honors and awards

Yonggang Huang is a member of US National Academy of Engineering, a member of US National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, a foreign member of Academia Europaea, and a foreign member of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has been honored with many recognitions for his research in mechanics and mechanical engineering including the Larson Award, Melville Medal, Richards Award , Drucker Medal, Nadai Medal, and Thurston Lecture Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; Young Investigator Medal and Prager Medal from the Society of Engineering Sciences ; International Journal of Plasticity Medal ; the Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; and Bazant Medal and von Karman Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is a Highly Cited Researcher in Engineering, in Materials Science and Engineering, and in Physics. He has been awarded the Honorary Professor from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Southwest Jiaotong University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Xiangtan University, Beihang University and Shanghai University. His recognitions for undergraduate teaching and advising include the Most Supportive Junior Faculty Member from the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Arizona in 1993; On the list of “Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students” in Spring 2003, Spring and Fall 2004, Spring 2005, Fall 2006, and Spring 2007, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising from the College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007; Cole-Higgins Award for Excellence in Teaching, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University in 2016; and Associated Student Government Faculty and Administrator Honor Roll, Northwestern University, 2018-2019.

Publications

Professor Huang is the author of over 600 publications in international journals, including journals in multiple fields such as mechanics, electronics, materials, medicine, nanotechnology, physics, and multidisplinary journals.