The career of K. Jimmy Hsia, a prominent researcher in interdisciplinary mechanics, has long spanned two worlds – he is an acclaimed scientist and a skilled administrator who unites fields and stakeholders. Hsia has also served as associate vice-chancellor for research at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), vice-provost at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and vice-president and founding dean of the graduate college at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Now, the professor who combines the talents of an accomplished scientist and formidable manager is back in China. Last Friday, the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) in Ningbo in China’s eastern Zhejiang province announced that Hsia had joined the university full-time. The Eastern Institute of Technology in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, was established in 2025.