John Hu

John Hu, an experienced scientist and engineer with a proven track record of inventing, developing and commercializing innovative chemical processes associated with the oil and gas industries, has been named the Statler Endowed Faculty Chair in Engineering for Natural Gas Utilization. Hu comes to WVU from Koch Industries, where he was charged with identifying future technological growth areas related to petrochemicals and catalytic and biological processing, and developing research and development strategies for commercialization. He also supervised industrial-funded research at U.S.-based universities, national laboratories and RD institutes. Before joining the team at Koch, Hu served as an RD manager at Black Veatch Corporation, where he led interdisciplinary teams charged with commercializing oil, gas and chemical technologies. In the late 1990s, he served as a lead refinery engineer for BP Oil, responsible for refining process optimization. Hu received his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Tsinghua University in China, and did his post-doctoral research at the University of Pittsburgh. He later earned an MBA from Washington State University.