David L. Hu (born circa 1979) is an American mathematician, roboticist, and biologist who is currently an associate professor at the engineering department of

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

. His research centers on animal behavior and movement, and is noted for its eccentricity. Hu was born in Rockville, Maryland. His father was a chemist who enjoyed collecting and dissecting

road kill Roadkill is an animal or animals that have been struck and killed by drivers of motor vehicles on highways. Wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) have increasingly been the topic of academic research to understand the causes, and how it can be mi ...

, which inspired his son's curiosity regarding the science of living things. Hu is married to Dr. Jia Fan, a data scientist employed by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

with whom he has two children. Hu's children have inspired some of his research projects. "From a diaper change with my son, I was inspired to study urination. From watching my daughter being born, I was inspired by her long eyelashes." Hu is known for focusing on irreverent and whimsical research subjects. In 2016 his work was criticized by Arizona Senator Jeff Flake as one of the twenty most wasteful federally funded research projects. Hu responded to this criticism with a TEDx talk in which he embraced the label of "the country's most wasteful scientist" and criticized the senator's understanding of the scientific method. Hu has twice won the

Ig Nobel Prize The Ig Nobel Prize ( ) is a satiric prize awarded annually since 1991 to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. Its aim is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The name o ...

for Physics. In 2015 he shared the prize with Patricia Yang for research on the duration of animal urination, in which Yang and Hu found that nearly all mammals evacuate their bladders in approximately 21 seconds plus or minus 13 seconds. In 2019 Hu and colleagues won the prize for studying the means of production of the cubical feces of

wombat Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . All three of the extant species are members of the family Vombatidae. They are ada ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hu, David Living people American biomechanists American people of Chinese descent People from Rockville, Maryland Year of birth missing (living people)