Dr. Li He

Li He earned BSc & MSc at Beihang University (1982, 1984), and PhD at Cambridge University (1990). He remained at Cambridge as a postdoc and a college research fellow until 1993, then moved to Durham University, as Lecturer (1993), Reader (1998) and Professor (2000). At Durham, he became the Head of Thermofluids and the Director of Research for the School of Engineering, before being elected to the Royal Academy Engineering/Rolls-Royce Research Chair at Oxford (2008-2013).
He holds the Statutory Chair Professorship of Computational Aerothermal Engineering at University of Oxford, and is the Oxford co-director of the EPSRC Centre of Doctoral Training (CDT) in Gas Turbine Aerodynamics. He had been the head of the Osney Laboratory (2008-2011), and the acting director of the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre (UTC) in heat transfer and aerodynamics. Under his leadership his leadership, the Osney Lab had undertaken a major (18 months) upgrading relocation, acquired the 2nd generation flagship Oxford Turbine Research Facility (OTRF), and doubled the number of academics. The new Osney Lab has been the reinvigorated centre of turbomachinery research at Oxford (renamed as ‘Oxford Thermofluids Institute’ since 2018).
Professor He’s primary research interest is in developing unsteady aerodynamic, aeroelastic and aerothermal prediction and design/optimization methods. He is recognised for instigating the Fourier methods for turbomachinery in 1990s. The Fourier methods have since then been further developed in various forms, implemented in many commercial, industrial and research CFD codes for practical applications worldwide. The corresponding development efforts have also evolved into an active research topic area in turbomachinery over the last two decades.