Yan, David
Associate Professor
Department of Aviation and Technology
Preferred: david.yan@sjsu.edu
Telephone
Preferred: 408-924-3222
Office
IS 101
Education
- B.E. (Hons) Mechanical Engineering, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, 2007
- M.Phil. (1st Hons) Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, 2009
- Ph.D. Deakin University, Australia, 2014
Bio
Dr. David Yan joined the Department of Aviation & Technology at San José State University as an Assistant Professor in August 2017. Prior to SJSU, he served as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
His research and engineering expertise span friction stir welding and processing (including friction stir surfacing), high-speed and micro-scale machining, additive and hybrid manufacturing, computer-aided design and manufacturing, and electronic packaging and interconnection. His long-term goal is to advance fundamental understanding of process mechanisms in severe plastic deformation (SPD) processing, hybrid additive manufacturing-machining, and solid-state joining/processing of high-performance materials. Emphasizing process-structure-property relationships, he examines how processing conditions drive microstructural evolution, surface integrity, and cross-scale texturing, and how these factors influence performance-critical properties such as reliability, thermal management, and biological response (e.g., osseointegration), enabling more efficient, reliable, and high-quality manufacturing processes.
To date, he has authored more than 30 publications, including books, journal articles, and peer-reviewed conference proceedings. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). He serves The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) as a technical committee member (Additive Manufacturing; Shaping & Forming; Powder Materials; Electronic Packaging & Interconnection Materials; and Titanium), as a guest editor for JOM (the member journal of TMS), and as a symposium co-organizer since 2016. In addition, he serves as a symposium lead organizer for the Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC) within the Manufacturing Engineering Division (MED) of ASME. Recently, he was elected Chair of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Professional Chapter Silicon Valley No. 98 (serving term 2/1/2026–1/31/2027).
He received his B.E. (Hons) and M.Phil. (1st Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, in 2007 and 2009, respectively, and earned his Ph.D. from Deakin University, Australia, in 2014 (visiting Ph.D. candidate at Ontario Tech University, Canada, 2011–2013).