December 7, 2022
By Ashley Ritchie

Yuhang Hu, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech, is the 2021 recipient of the Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty. She was formally recognized at the annual Applied Mechanics Division banquet during the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE) conference, held last month in Columbus, OH.

The award is given annually to emerging junior faculty who exemplify the creative use and development of mechanics. Hu was recognized for her research on chemomechanics of soft active materials, an interdisciplinary area between mechanics and polymer chemistry. Her work integrates multi-scale material characterization and multi-physics modeling.

Hu is also the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, AFOSR YIP Award, Extreme Mechanics Letters Young Investigator Award, Journal of Applied Mechanics Award, ASME Sia Nemat-Nassar Early Career Award, and SEM James Dally Young Investigator Award.

Hu earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering mechanics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, a Master of Science degree in civil and environmental engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and a Master of Science degree in applied physics and a Ph.D. in engineering sciences from Harvard University. She became an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2015 and joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2018. She was promoted to associate professor in 2021 and named a Woodruff Faculty Fellow earlier this year.

Hu has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers in highly cited journals in both the fields of mechanics and materials. She has delivered over two dozen invited seminars and talks and three keynotes at peer institutions, international conferences, and workshops. She was elected as the newsletter editor of the ASME technical committee of mechanics of soft materials and is currently serving as the chair of the committee. She is the associate editor of the Journal of Applied Mechanics and Mechanics of Time-dependent Materials.

The Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty, launched in 2012, intends to promote the field of mechanics, especially among young researchers, and commemorate the memory of Professor John Douglas Eshelby. The selection committee consists of five editors or editorial board members of mechanics journals.