A renowned expert in China's aeroengine field, Yan Hong, has passed away at the age of 57.

Ask AI · How does her overseas experience influence the development of China’s aircraft engine technology?

The obituary released by the School of Power and Energy at Northwestern Polytechnical University on March 26 states that Ms. Yan Hong, a renowned expert in China’s aircraft engine field, professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Power and Energy at Northwestern Polytechnical University, passed away at 17:19 on March 24, 2026, at Jiangsu Provincial People’s Hospital due to illness. She was 57 years old.

The obituary states that Professor Yan Hong was born in September 1969, was unaffiliated, served as the executive vice chairman of the university’s overseas Chinese association, was an AIAA Associate Fellow, and was a specially appointed expert under Shaanxi Province’s “Hundred Talents Program.” She was admitted to the School of Aeronautics at Northwestern Polytechnical University in 1991, earning bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, and then conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Engineering Mechanics at Tsinghua University. From 1999 to 2005, she was an assistant research professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Rutgers University. From 2005 to 2010, she was a research professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Wright State University. Since December 2010, she returned to her alma mater to teach at the School of Power and Energy at Northwestern Polytechnical University. She served as a member of the Shaanxi Provincial Political Consultative Conference, director of the Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Internal Flow Dynamics of Aircraft Engines, and vice dean of the School of Power and Energy.

She has long been engaged in teaching and research in the fields of supersonic/hypersonic flow control mechanisms, plasma flow control, and computational fluid dynamics. She served on the editorial boards of Gas Physics and Propulsion Technology, and was a member of the technical committee of the European Space Science Conference. She consistently dedicated herself to education and scientific research, with rigorous scholarship and a focus on nurturing talent, cultivating a large number of outstanding professionals in aerospace. She has hosted multiple national-level scientific research projects including the National Natural Science Foundation, National Numerical Wind Tunnel Project, and the National Key R&D Program. She has received awards such as the Best Paper Award at international academic conferences and published numerous high-level academic papers in authoritative international journals like AIAA Journal and Journal of Computational Physics. She has made outstanding contributions to technological breakthroughs and disciplinary development in China’s aircraft engine field. As the executive vice chairman of the university’s overseas Chinese association, she actively united overseas Chinese hearts and efforts, playing an important role in the orderly development of the association’s work.