Hang Yu
Hang Z. Yu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering
at Virginia Tech. He received his B.S. in Physics from Peking University in 2007 and his Ph.D.
in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT in 2013, followed by postdoctoral training at
MIT before joining Virginia Tech in 2016. His research focuses on the materials processing
science of advanced manufacturing, including non-equilibrium processing, process physics
exploration via explainable AI, and shear-driven kinetic phenomena, with the goal of
generating new fundamental insights and translating them into transformative applications
in repair, recycling, and autonomous, resilient manufacturing. Widely recognized as a
pioneer of solid-state metal additive manufacturing, particularly additive friction stir
deposition, he is a recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award and the author of the
monograph Additive Friction Stir Deposition (Elsevier, 2022).