Prof. YANG Jinglei, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to education, research and service in the profession of aeronautics and related engineering sectors.

Prof. Yang’s research aims at tackling engineering problems via materials innovation, which interfaces cross-disciplinary areas ranging from chemistry, materials engineering, manufacturing to mechanics. His current interests lie in using data-driven materials genome approach to design and manufacture bioinspired multifunctional composites and structures to address the challenging issues in aerospace, building, and transportation sectors. He has extensive fundamental and applied research experiences in the areas and has completed or has been leading more than 30 projects supported by the government and industrial partners since 2009 in composites design and smart manufacturing, self-healing materials and coatings, energy-efficient materials, and graphene-based multifunctional materials.

Prof. Yang obtained his PhD degree from the Institute for Composite Materials at Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany in 2006. He then joined the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a postdoc research associate and later Nanyang Technological University (NTU) as an assistant professor. He received the Wilfried Ensinger Award supported by the Scientific Alliance of the University Professors of Polymer Technology (WAK) Germany (2008), Koh Boon Hwee Scholars Inspirational Teaching Award from NTU (2013), Distinguished Young Investigator of China Frontiers of Engineering Award from Chinese Academy of Engineering (2019), and was included in the top 1% list of global materials scientists assessed by standardized citation metrics (2020). He has/had also been an editorial board member or associate editor of Composites Communications, Plastics, Rubber and Composites, Functional Composites and Structures, and Journal of Micromechanics and Molecular Physics, etc. Currently, he is the Acting Head of Sustainable Energy and Environment Thrust of Function Hub, HKUST(GZ), Executive Director of HKUST-Bright Dream Robotics Joint Research Institute, and Director of Center for Engineering Materials and Reliability.

Established in 1866, the Royal Aeronautical Society has been at the forefront of developments in aerospace, seeking to promote the highest professional standards and provide a central forum for sharing knowledge. The Society now has over 22,500 members and has become an international, multidisciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community.