Dr. H. Thomas Hahn received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University, Korea, in 1964 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Mechanics from Penn State in 1968 and 1971, respectively. He is currently the Chair of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department with a joint appointment in the Material Science and Engineering Department, UCLA. He also holds the Raytheon Chair in Manufacturing Engineering and serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Composite Materials.

Dr. Hahn’s work in composites started in 1972 at the Air Force Materials Laboratory. Before joining the UCLA faculty in 1992, he was the Harry and Arlene Schell Professor of Engineering at Penn State. Prior experiences include a professorship at Washington University in St. Louis, research positions at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the University of Dayton Research Institute, and an IPA/Program Manager of the Mechanics of Materials and Devices Program at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research from 1999 to 2001.

Dr. Hahn is a member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society for Composites. He is the recipient of the 1991 Outstanding Research Award from the Penn State Engineering Society, the 1996 Medal of Excellence in Composite Materials from the University of Delaware Center for Composite Materials, the 1998 Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award from Pi Tau Sigma and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the 1999 Ho-Am Prize for Engineering from the Ho-Am Foundation, the 1999 Technomic Award for Excellence in Composites from the American Society for Composites, and a 2000 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award from the Seoul National University. He was president of the American Society for Composites, 1996-1997, the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association, 1999-2000, and the International Committee on Composite Materials, 2005-2007.

NOTE: Two of our Centennial Fellows are spotlighted each week.