Seven nationally and internationally prominent scholars, including four who will be part of the Dwight Look College of Engineering, will be inducted Friday (Jan. 30) as Faculty Fellows of the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS).
The scholars come from other top U.S. universities, as well as one from Russia who has twice won that country’s highest science award.
Dr. Jack Dongarra (computer science and engineering), Dr. William S. Marras (industrial and systems engineering), Dr. Rakesh Agrawal (chemical engineering) and Dr. Robert Skelton (aerospace engineering) will serve as in-residence TIAS Faculty Fellows for two to 12 months, collaborating with numerous Texas A&M faculty and students.
TIAS Founding Director John L. Junkins had high praise for this third group of fellows when their selections were announced last fall and said he is even more enthusiastic now that some of them have arrived on campus and begun interacting with the university’s faculty and staff.
“The positive impact on the university as a consequence of attracting these extraordinarily accomplished individuals cannot be over-emphasized,” Junkins said. “These exceptional scholars, together with our current top-flight faculty, will help foster an even more vibrant environment for research and teaching, and will pay tremendous future dividends through enhanced collaborations and faculty recruitment.”
TIAS, which has as its primary mission bringing renowned scholars to Texas A&M for extended visits to interact with current faculty and students, is now in its third year of operation and is building on the success of the first two groups of TIAS Faculty Fellows, all of whom are continuing their affiliations with the university.
The growing body of Faculty Fellows has come to be informally tagged the “genius corps” in recognition of the selectees’ records of accomplishment in their various fields and equating their potential academic impact on the university to that of its legendary Corps of Cadets in another dimension.
The new inductees will be formally introduced at a special recognition program on campus Friday night.
Junkins said the expectation is that by 2018, the university will be attracting 20 new world-class scholars each year for even greater opportunities for interaction.
TIAS was established with the help of Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp, who made possible a $5 million endowment for TIAS through The Texas A&M University System’s Academic Enhancement Program.
The new class of Faculty Fellows includes an awardee of the highest honor bestowed by the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, a recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and members of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and winners of analogous prestigious international honors.
Members of the 2014-2015 set of Faculty Fellows:
• Dr. Rakesh Agrawal is the Winthrop E. Stone Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University and is a recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the U.S. government’s highest honor in those fields. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has conducted extensive research regarding solar energy production issues, including how to fabricate low-cost solar cells based on nanotechnology. Considered a master inventor, more than 100 manufacturing plants with investments of billions of dollars incorporate his inventions, repositioning parts of the U.S. manufacturing sector for world-wide competitiveness.
• Dr. Jack Dongarra is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of Tennessee and holds the honor of being a member of the Distinguished Research Staff at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has produced numerous software packages that have made a monumental impact on high-performance computing, as all scientific codes of any importance use products of his team.
• Dr. William S. Marras holds the Honda Endowed Chair and Professor of Integrated Systems Engineering at Ohio State University. Additionally he is Professor, Physical Medicine and Rehab, Professor, Orthopedics, and Professor of Neurological Surgery at Ohio State University. Dr. Marras is the Director and Scientific Director of the Spine Research Institute. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He specializes in studies concerning spine disorder causation and prevention, evaluations, and treatment.
• Dr. Robert Skelton is the Daniel L. Alspach Professor of Dynamic Systems and Controls and is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, he is world renowned for his work in control systems, systems engineering design optimization, structural dynamics and design, and tensegrity structures and multi-scale tensegrity in materials, and deployable structures. He has for many years been involved with the control of Skylab and the Hubble Telescope.
• Mr. Harold Adams is Chairman Emeritus of RTKL International, having built a small company into a large innovative company with 14 locations around the world, and he is a designer of many prestigious projects. He is a member of the National Academy of Construction and the Royal Institute of British Architects and is the 2014 recipient of the Leslie N. Boney Award, the highest honor awarded by the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects. Mr. Adams was one of the first Americans to be awarded a “first class Kenchikushi” license in Japan. He has served as the KAE Professor in the University of Maryland School of Architecture (2005) and early in his career was project director for President John F. Kennedy’s grave site.
• Dr. Ed Moses has received the Award of Excellence by the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Award of Excellence for the first experiments by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in conjunction with Los Alamos National Laboratory, and he is the recipient of the D.S. Rozhdestvensky Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Lasers and Optical Sciences awarded by the Russian Optical Society. Dr. Moses is best known for developing and managing complex laser systems and high-technology projects. For years he has directed the nation’s fusion energy research, and his expertise in high-power laser physics applications is without peer. He is now the new director of the Magellan Telescope Project.
• Dr. Yuri Oganessian is Professor, Scientific Director, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research – Dubna, Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Russia. He has twice been named winner of the State Prize, the highest national award by the President of Russia. He has won other prestigious international competitions and is regarded as the world leader in the search for and discovery of new elements. He has discovered the heaviest elements with atomic numbers, and he has discovered nuclear reactions leading to synthesis of elements.
The Institute’s Faculty Fellows are annually selected through a process led by an electorate of acclaimed current faculty at Texas A&M, consisting of Nobel Laureates, Wolf Prize recipients, National Academies members and distinguished professors, among others.