The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University is pleased to announce that Associate Professor Prof. Huang Xinyan has received the 2026 Hiroshi Tsuji Early Career Researcher Award from The Combustion Institute.
Established in 2016, the annual award recognizes outstanding achievements in fundamental or applied combustion science research. In 2026, three early career researchers worldwide were selected for this prestigious honour: Prof. Xinyan Huang of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Matteo Pelucchi of Politecnico di Milano, and Prof. Huangwei Zhang of the National University of Singapore.
Prof. Huang is an Associate Professor in BEEE at PolyU. He earned his PhD from Imperial College London and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley. Over the years, he has co-authored more than 200 journal papers spanning smoldering dynamics, wildland fire, microgravity combustion, battery safety, and AI-powered fire resilience.
He currently serves as an Associate Editor of Proceedings of the Combustion Institute. His previous recognitions include the Bernard Lewis Fellowship, the Early Career Award from the International Association of Fire Safety Science and the International Association of Wildland Fire, the NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund, and the CES Best Innovation Award. He has also helped incubate two start-ups, WideMount Dynamics, which focuses on firefighting robots, and GABES, which develops intelligent fire service systems.
Upon receiving the award, Prof. Huang said, “I am incredibly thrilled and honored to receive the 2026 Hiroshi Tsuji Early Career Researcher Award. I am grateful to my mentors, colleagues, and collaborators, who have shaped my career. I also dedicate this award to my current and past students and postdocs who always create brilliant ideas and challenge hard questions through their innovative thinking and hard work. Finally, I would like to thank NSFC, RGC, ITC, and PolyU for supporting my research and team over the last decade.”
BEEE congratulates Prof. Huang on this remarkable international recognition and celebrates his outstanding research contributions to combustion science, fire safety, and engineering innovation.
About the Hiroshi Tsuji Early Career Researcher Award
The annual Hiroshi Tsuji Early Career Researcher Award, launched in 2016, recognizes excellence in fundamental or applied combustion science research. Co-sponsored by Elsevier and The Combustion Institute, the award and prize is annually bestowed upon an early career researcher who has advanced a specific field of research within four to ten years of completing a doctoral degree or equivalent. The award is named after Professor Hiroshi Tsuji, whose stable porous cylinder counterflow burner configuration has influenced fundamental studies and applications in laminar and turbulent combustion.
About The Combustion Institute
Founded in 1954, The Combustion Institute is an international non-profit, educational and scientific society. The institute promotes and disseminates the research activities of 34 regional sections in all areas of combustion science for the advancement of many communities around the world. The International Symposium on Combustion is the major biennial membership meeting. The Institute also sponsors two scientific journals, Combustion and Flame, published monthly, and The Proceedings of The Combustion Institute, published biennially. Visit The Combustion Institute website at: CombustionInstitute.org.
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make ground-breaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions — among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence, and ClinicalKey — and publishes over 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 33,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. Elsevier is part of RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries. www.elsevier.com
For more details about the award, please visit:
https://members.combustioninstitute.org/news_archive_headlines.php?org_id=CMBI&sniid=53953423#53953423
