Alan Luo


Alan Aihua Luo is an American engineer and academic, specializing in advanced materials and manufacturing. He is currently the Donald D. Glower Chair in Engineering, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Integrated Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University. Luo is leading the Lightweight Materials and Manufacturing Research Laboratory and is Director of the Advanced Casting Research Center at OSU. He is also a technical leader in the REMADE Institute.
In 2023, Luo was elected to the National Academy of Engineering "for the implementation of lightweight aluminum, magnesium, and titanium materials and advanced manufacturing processes for automotive applications".

Biography

Luo was born in Anhui, China in 1964. Luo received his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from Anhui Polytechnic University in 1984, and Master of Engineering degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 1987. He pursued his PhD research on advanced aluminum alloys at the University of Windsor in Canada and obtained his PhD in Engineering Materials in 1993.
After his PhD, Luo went to industry to design lightweight alloys and develop manufacturing processes for the automotive industry. He was a GM Technical Fellow at General Motors Research and Development Center with 20 years of industrial experience.
In 2013, Luo joined the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Integrated Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University as a tenured full professor. He has been awarded the Donald D. Glower Chair in Engineering since 2023 for his research and teaching focusing on transportation.

Research

Luo uses classical thermodynamics and CALPHAD modeling in designing new aluminum, magnesium and lightweight high entropy alloys. His computational thermodynamics tools have been coupled with kinetic models to simulate manufacturing processes to optimize alloy design and processing of multi-component systems for improved mechanical and corrosion properties. Luo has applied the fundamental principles of thermodynamics, kinetics, solidification, thermomechanical processing in developing new and innovative processes for lightweight alloys and composites. For these innovations, he received the 2023 TMS Research to Industrial Practice Award.

Major awards and honors