Professor Joseph Yan Ph.D

Personal Statement

Joseph Yan obtained the BEng and MEng degrees in Engineering Thermophysics in 1986 and 1988, respectively, from Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was a research engineer and led the Fundamental Research Division at Xi’an High Voltage Apparatus Research Institute (now XIHARI) before he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at the University of Liverpool as a postgraduate research student in 1994. Since he obtained the PhD degree in 1998, he has been a PDRA, Lecturer (2001), Senior Lecturer (2012), Reader (2014) and Professor in Applied Electromagnetism (2017).
Joseph’s research interests and expertise are within atmospheric gas discharges and plasma physics, switching arcs and SF6 alternative technology, computational fluid dynamics modelling of equilibrium and non-equilibrium plasmas, HVDC insulation, and more recently in low carbon energy technologies. The impact of his research in switching arcs was recognised as internationally leading in the REF 2021 (Research Excellence Framework).
Joseph is an active member of the Current Zero Club (http://currentzeroclub.org/about-us/ ) and Senior Member of IEEE. He sits on the scientific committee of two major international conferences (Physics of Switching Arcs, Gas Discharges and Their Applications) in his research field. He is a Visiting Professor to Xi’an Jiaotong University in China.