Li Minhua

Li Minhua was a Chinese aerospace engineer and physicist who was an expert in solid mechanics. She was the first woman to earn a PhD in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1948. She was one of the founding scientists at the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and was elected as an academician in 1980. Her husband Wu Zhonghua was also an accomplished physicist and CAS academician. Li was born on 2 November 1917 in Wu County (now Suzhou), Jiangsu, China. She graduated from Wu Pen Girls' School in Shanghai and was admitted to Tsinghua University in 1935. After the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Tsinghua and several other universities evacuated Beijing and moved south to Kunming, Yunnan Province, where they combined their diminished resources to form the temporary National Southwestern Associated University (Lianda). Deeply affected by Japanese aggression, Li chose to study aeronautical engineering in order to contribute to China's national defense. She was among the first class of students to graduate from Lianda's Department of Aeronautical Engineering in 1940, and was hired as a faculty member by the university. In 1943, she married Wu Zhonghua, a fellow physicist and Tsinghua Lianda alumnus and faculty member. In 1944, Li and Wu went to the United States to study at MIT. Li studied mechanical engineering, while Wu specialized in the internal combustion engine. She gave birth to two sons while at MIT, and the couple took turns looking after the children. She earned her master's degree in 1945 and her ScD (PhD-equivalent) in 1948, overcoming then-prevalent sexual discrimination and becoming the first female MIT student to earn a PhD in mechanical engineering. After graduation from MIT, Li and Wu both joined the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the predecessor of NASA) as research scientists. Her research on engine defects led to her later focus on material fatigue, which she extensively researched until she was in her eighties. Starting in 1982, she organized a biennial national conference on material fatigue. Li returned to China in 1954 and joined the Institute of Mechanics of CAS as a research professor. She made significant contributions to the fields of plastic mechanics, fracture mechanics, and fatigue mechanics. She published more than 100 papers and several books, and received many awards and honors for her achievements. She also supervised many graduate students and young researchers, and was active in international academic exchanges. Li died on 19 January 2013, at the age of 95, in Beijing, China. She was widely respected and admired for her pioneering work and dedication to science. She was also a role model for many women in science and engineering.