McCormick Prof. Yonggang Huang was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering on Sept. 23, an honor reserved for only the best engineering researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and business and industry leaders.
A joint professor of mechanical engineering, civil and environmental engineering, Huang is one of 74 fellows elected this year and one of nine international fellows.
Huang said he plans to attend the Nov. 18 ceremony admitting the new class of fellows, which will take place in London.
“It’s really a great honor,” Huang said. “I’m very happy that I was elected, and it has also felt very good to contribute to the U.K. engineering and technology development.”
Huang’s research focuses on developing flexible electronics for medical applications, such as health monitoring.
Currently, most health monitoring must be done in a hospital, but flexible electronics allow monitoring to be done in any setting. That’s important for people with different medical conditions, allowing them to reduce the frequency of hospital visits, and in the sports industry, Huang explained.
“It’s making electronics, which are now rigid, but to make them bend, put them on your skin to really monitor your health, conditions, the EKG, all those electronic psychological signals,” Huang said. “It’s really adopted worldwide, not specifically in the UK.”
Huang is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a foreign member of the Royal Society (London). Two years ago, he said, he also became the first foreign member of the Royal Society to serve as the chair of its election committee.
Huang has published two books and written over 700 papers for international journals, including 16 in “Science” and 10 in “Nature,” both prestigious publications.
“It feels good to be recognized but I would like to say I’m equally or more proud that I contribute to Northwestern’s teaching,” Huang said.
In 2016 and 2024, Huang received the Cole-Higgins Award for Excellence in Teaching. He said the teaching award for McCormick professors can only be given to the same person twice every eight years.
Huang emphasized the importance of his collaboration with McCormick Prof. John Rogers, the director at Querry Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics at Northwestern, and said he looks forward to continuing to teach and contribute to the medical industry.
“I will continue to collaborate with Professor John Rogers and focus more on the application of flexible electronics and apply it to medicine, to many of the cases for people with different medical conditions,” Huang said.
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