David Hu (scientist)

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David Hu (2019 Ig Nobel Prize)

David L. Hu (born circa 1979 [1] ) is an American mathematician, roboticist, and biologist who is currently an associate professor at the engineering department of Georgia Tech. His research centers on animal behavior and movement, and is noted for its eccentricity. [2]

Hu was born in Rockville, Maryland, and as high school student he was a semifinalist in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. [3] [4] His father was a chemist who enjoyed collecting and dissecting road kill, which inspired his son's curiosity regarding the science of living things. [5] He received his Bachelor's degree and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [6]

Hu is married to Dr. Jia Fan, a data scientist employed by AT&T with whom he has two children. [1] Hu's children have inspired some of his research projects. "From a diaper change with my son, I was inspired to study urination. From watching my daughter being born, I was inspired by her long eyelashes." [7]

Hu is known for focusing on irreverent and whimsical research subjects. In 2016 his work was criticized by Arizona Senator Jeff Flake as one of the twenty most wasteful federally funded research projects. [8] Hu responded to this criticism with a TEDx talk in which he embraced the label of "the country's most wasteful scientist" and criticized the senator's understanding of the scientific method. [1] [9]

Recognition

Hu has twice won the Ig Nobel Prize for Physics. [10] In 2015 he shared the prize with Patricia Yang for research on the duration of animal urination, in which Yang and Hu found that nearly all mammals evacuate their bladders in approximately 21 seconds plus or minus 13 seconds. [11] In 2019 Hu and colleagues won the prize for studying the means of production of the cubical feces of wombats. [12]

He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2023, "for innovative experiments in biological fluid mechanics and a willingness to share them with young scientists". [13]

Related Research Articles

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<i>Annals of Improbable Research</i> Humorous academic journal

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yang Chen-Ning</span> Chinese theoretical physicist (born 1922)

Yang Chen-Ning or Chen-Ning Yang, also known as C. N. Yang or by the English name Frank Yang, is a Chinese theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to statistical mechanics, integrable systems, gauge theory, and both particle physics and condensed matter physics. He and Tsung-Dao Lee received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on parity non-conservation of weak interaction. The two proposed that the conservation of parity, a physical law observed to hold in all other physical processes, is violated in the so-called weak nuclear reactions, those nuclear processes that result in the emission of beta or alpha particles. Yang is also well known for his collaboration with Robert Mills in developing non-abelian gauge theory, widely known as the Yang–Mills theory.

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The year 1948 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melissa Franklin</span> Particle physicist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy J. Glauber</span> American theoretical physicist (1925–2018)

Roy Jay Glauber was an American theoretical physicist. He was the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics at Harvard University and Adjunct Professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. Born in New York City, he was awarded one half of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence", with the other half shared by John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch. In this work, published in 1963, he created a model for photodetection and explained the fundamental characteristics of different types of light, such as laser light and light from light bulbs. His theories are widely used in the field of quantum optics. In statistical physics he pioneered the study of the dynamics of first-order phase transitions, since he first defined and investigated the stochastic dynamics of an Ising model in a paper published in 1963. He served on the National Advisory Board of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the research arms of Council for a Livable World.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John C. Mather</span> American astrophysicist and cosmologist (born 1946)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur B. McDonald</span> Canadian astrophysicist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andre Geim</span> Russian-born Dutch–British physicist (born 1958)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry J. Lipkin</span> Israeli theoretical physicist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mu-ming Poo</span> Chinese-American neuroscientist (born 1948)

Mu-ming Poo is a Chinese neuroscientist. He is the Paul Licht Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and the Founding Director of the Shanghai-based Institute of Neuroscience (ION) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the 2016 Gruber Prize in Neuroscience for his pioneering work on synaptic plasticity. At ION, Poo led a team of scientists that produced the world's first truly cloned primates, a pair of crab-eating macaques called Zhongzhong and Huahua in 2017, using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ELTE Faculty of Science</span>

The Faculty of Science of Eötvös Loránd University was founded in 1949 and it is located in Lágymányos Campus, Újbuda, Budapest, Hungary.

Patricia Priest is a New Zealand public health scientist and epidemiologist who is Professor of Public Health in Medicine at the University of Otago. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Priest served as an advisor to the New Zealand Ministry of Health. She was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2010. As of 2024 Priest is the Acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Division of Health Sciences at the university.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Gorman, James (5 November 2018). "The Mysteries of Animal Movement". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  2. ↑ "David Hu Takes Home Ig Nobel Prize for 'Improbable Research'". Georgia Tech. 15 October 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  3. ↑ "Cube-Shaped Poo and Georgia Tech's Second Ig Nobel Prize". Georgia Tech College of Sciences. Georgia Tech. 9 October 2019. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  4. ↑ Erlichman, Janelle (24 January 1997). "Area H.S. Has 9 in Prestigious Westinghouse Semifinals". CNS Maryland.
  5. ↑ Hu, David L. (June 13, 2018). "My Father, the Chemist, Teaches Anatomy". Scientific American.
  6. ↑ Mallinson, Alissa Mariello (26 Feb 2015). "David Hu". MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering.
  7. ↑ Frum, Larry (3 October 2019). "The American Institute of Physics Announces 2019 Science Communication Award Winners". American Institute of Physics. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  8. ↑ "Senator Jeff Flake's List of Wasteful Government Research Studies". Fox & Friends . 10 May 2016. FOX News. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  9. ↑ Hu, David (25 May 2016). "Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist". Scientific American. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  10. ↑ "The Ig Nobel Prize Winners". improbable.com. Improbable Research. August 2006. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  11. ↑ Yang, Patricia; Hu, David; Pham, Jonathan; Choo, Jerome (19 August 2014). "Duration of urination does not change with body size". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  12. ↑ Yang, Patricia; Hu, David (18 November 2018). "How do wombats make cubed poo?". Bulletin of the American Physical Society. 63 (13). Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  13. ↑ "2023 Fellows". APS Fellow Archive. American Physical Society. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
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