Meet your STLE 2023 - 2024 President

Dr. Hong Liang from Texas A&M University Elected 2023-2024 STLE President

Dr. Hong Liang, Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. Professor of J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, takes the reins as STLE’s 20232024 president, with her oneyear term beginning in May. Liang is an educator, researcher and scholar. Her tribological  research lies in both fundamental and application aspects. Her research group designs advanced tribo-materials and structures and makes them through nanomanufacturing.  

Liang investigates surface properties and interfacial interactions of those materials in tribological applications, including chemical-mechanical polishing. Her group has published intensively in the tribology community. Her services to the tribology community include being an associate editor of STLE’s peer-reviewed journal Tribology Transactions, current editor of Tribology International, past regional editor (North America) of Surface Topography: Metrology and Properties as well as associate editor of Friction and several other journals. 

In 2018-2019, Liang was the assistant director of research partnerships at the Advanced Manufacturing National Program  Office of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md., where she served as a 20182019 ASME Foundation Swanson Fellow. She received her doctorate and master’s degrees in materials science and engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. 

Liang has participated in STLE since 1989, including serving as a member of the STLE Board of Directors from 2007 to 2013. In 2007, she was appointed as STLE Annual Meeting Program Committee chair after serving on the committee for nine years. She is past chair of STLE’s Awards and Fellows Committees. Liang is a Fellow of STLE and ASME. 

In 2020, she became a member of the Executive Committee, serving one-year terms as treasurer, secretary and vice president. Joining her on the Executive Committee are Vice President Jack McKenna (SeaLand Chemical Co.), Secretary Kevin Delaney (Vanderbilt Chemicals Co.), Treasurer Steffen Bots (LUBESERV), Immediate Past President Dr. Ryan D. Evans (The Timken Co.) and STLE Executive Director Ed Salek.