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. He graduated with an engineering degree in 1928. In 1938, Hoff moved to America, in order to study solid mechanics under
Stephen Timoshenko, receiving his Ph.D. from
Stanford University in 1942. His plans to return to Hungary were interrupted by the onset of the
Second World War. In 1940, Hoff joined the
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn as an instructor in aeronautical engineering, eventually becoming a full professor in 1946 and head of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 1950. He subsequently joined the faculty of
Stanford University in the fall of 1957. He served as the chair of the
ASME Applied Mechanics Division (1955). ==Awards and honors==