Prior to joining HKUST in August 2010, he was Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson Collegiate Professor and the Department Chair of Aerospace Engineering of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He had led several multi-institutional research projects funded by the US government and industries on future space transport, bio-inspired flight and computational aeronautical science, and is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is an editor of numerous peer-reviewed journals as well as a winner of multiple awards, including the 2003 AIAA Pendray Aerospace Literature Award.