12th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science was held in Lund University, Sweden from June 9th to June 17th 2017. In this symposium, Prof. Longhua Hu from State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (SKLFS), University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) was elected Vice-chairman of International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). He is the first Chinese honored Vice-chairman since IAFSS established in 1985. Prof. Longhua Hu was also invited to deliver a plenary lecture “A review of physics and correlations of pool fire behaviors in wind and future challenges” in the symposium and won the “Judges Choice Outstanding Image Award”.

Prof. Longhua Hu was admitted to USTC in 1997 and finished his bachelor, doctor and post-doctoral research during 1997 to 2008 in USTC. Then he stayed to work in USTC until now. He has done fundamental researches on dynamics of liquid/gaseous fuel leakage fire, high-rise building fire, underground building (subway/tunnel) fire, wire fire under special boundaries like cross wind, sub-pressure and microgravity. He has made many internationally influential achievements, which is highly recognized by the community. Prof. Longhua Hu has published more than 90 papers in top journals in the field of combustion, heat transfer and fire safety like Combustion and Flame(10), Proceedings of the Combustion Institute(8), Fuel(13), International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer(13) and Fire Safety Journal(8). He acts as editorial advisory board member of international journal Fire Technology and guest editor of Special issue on fire safety of high-rise buildings of Fire Technology; and was invited several times to give plenary lecture in the international academic conference in this field. Prof. Longhua Hu had received several top prizes and awards, as for example the Newton Advanced Fellowship (sponsored by Royal Society, UK), JSPS Fellowship (sponsored by Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS)), Most-cited Chinese Researchers (sponsored by Elsevier), National Top-Notch Young Talents of China (Sponsored by Chinese Government), Excellent Young Scientists (Sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)), LuJiaXi Youth Talent Award (sponsored by Chinese Academy of Science (CAS)), Henry Fok Education Foundation Young College Teacher Fund Award, ChangJiang Young Scholar (sponsored by Ministry of Education of China (MoE)), USTC Alumni Foundation Young Faculty Career Award and Youth Science and Technology Innovation Leadership (sponsored by Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST))

International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) is the most authoritative and influential international fire safety science academic organization, founded in 1985. The management council is composed of 24 members by top scholars from all over the world, consisting of 1 chairman and 3 vice-chairmen. In the recent years, the impact of SKLFS over international fire science community keeps increasing. It is a breakthrough development for the impact of SKLFS to international fire safety science community that the election of Prof. Longhua Hu as vice-chairman of IAFSS.