A retired aeronautics and astronautics professor and prominent researcher in the field of finite element methods, Academician Pian died of natural causes June 20 in his Cambridge home. He was 90.

A native of Shanghai, China, Academician Pian grew up in Pianjin and earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1940 at Tsing Hua University in Beijing.

After graduation, Academician Pian worked in Chinese aircraft manufacturing on the Burma Road during World War II before going to the United States in 1943.

In 1944, he earned a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and briefly worked as a stress analyst for Curtiss Airplane Division in Buffalo.

In 1945, he married Academician Rulan Chao, a Harvard graduate student he’d met while at MIT. Academician Pian returned to MIT that year to work on his doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics, which he was awarded in 1948.

Remaining at MIT, Academician Pian rose from teaching assistant and research associate in the department of aeronautics and astronautics to full professor in 1966.

During his career, Academician Pian lectured at 46 universities in the United States, and as many as 55 universities in other countries including China, Japan, India, Israel, Germany, Britain, and Canada. He also served as a visiting professor at 10 foreign universities and was named an honorary professor at several engineering schools and aeronautical institutes in China.

Despite retiring in 1990, Academician Pian continued to give Chinese graduate students advices, until about eight years ago, when his health declined.