Nicholas J. Hoff (January 3, 1906, in Magyaróvár, Hungary – August 4, 1997) was a Hungarian-born American engineer specializing in aeronautics and astronautics, which he taught at Stanford University.
Hoff spent his adolescence in Budapest, where he went to the same high school that had been attended by Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and John von Neumann.
After high school, he enrolled at ETH Zurich, where he studied under Aurel Stodola.
In 1938, Hoff moved to America, in order to study solid mechanics under Stephen Timoshenko, receiving his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1942.
[1] His plans to return to Hungary were interrupted by the onset of the Second World War.