Charles Liang, Ph.D.

Dr. Chunlei "Charles" Liang is the Director of the School of Engineering at Kent State University's College of Aeronautics and Engineering. An internationally recognized scholar and academic leader, Dr. Liang brings extensive experience in engineering research, academic leadership, and faculty and student mentorship.

Dr. Liang joins Kent State from Clarkson University, where he served as a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He served as Interim Director and, previously, Associate Director of the Clarkson Center for Complex Systems Science, and chaired the Academic Standards Committee. Previously, he held academic leadership and faculty roles at George Washington University, advancing from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and completed postdoctoral research in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University's Center for Turbulence Research.

Dr. Liang has secured competitive external funding from the Office of Naval Research, National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and NASA. His research addresses computational fluid dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics, with a record of scholarship recognized by the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award. In 2026, he received the Clarkson Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award.

He serves on the editorial boards of Computers & Fluids and Progress in Aerospace Sciences, and previously served as Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has also led major international conference initiatives, including chairing the Jameson-Kim-Wang Symposium on Computational Aerodynamics and the International Symposium on High-Order CFD Methods, and serving as Executive Chair of the AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference.

As director, Dr. Liang envisions the School of Engineering as a collegial, forward-looking leader in engineering education, research, and industry engagement that strengthens student success, empowers faculty excellence, and prepares graduates to shape the future of an ever-changing technological world.