The Texas A&M University College of Engineering has added to the strength of its teaching and research faculty with the addition five members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Three of the members have already joined the faculty, while two will come to Texas A&M beginning this January.
Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar and Dr. Robert Skelton have joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Dr. Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe has joined the Department of Ocean Engineering.
Dr. George Pharr will join the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Dr. Thomas Overbye will join the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, both beginning in January.
Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar
Dunbar is a Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) Distinguished Research Professor in the aerospace engineering department and also serves as the director of the TEES Institute for Engineering Education and Innovation (IEEI). Dunbar, who is a retired NASA astronaut, came to Texas A&M from the University of Houston where she provided leadership in the development of a new integrated university science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) center. She was an M.D. Anderson Professor of Mechanical Engineering and she developed a new innovative course for the introduction of engineering to freshmen students. She also directed the SICSA Space Architecture graduate program. Dunbar has devoted her life to furthering engineering, engineering education and the pursuit of human space exploration. Dunbar became a member of NAE in 2002.
Dr. Robert Skelton
Skelton is a TEES Distinguished Research Professor in the aerospace engineering department. Skelton, whose research focuses on integrating system science with material science to create new material systems, came to Texas A&M from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His contributions to innovative engineering serve humankind in outer space and Earth. Skelton served for 21 years as a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University where he also directed the Structural Systems and Control Laboratory for Purdue’s Institute for Interdisciplinary Engineering studies from 1991 to 1996. At UCSD he founded the university’s Systems and Control Program and became director of UCSD’s Structural Systems and Control Laboratory. In 2006, UCSD named Skelton the Daniel L. Alspach Professor of Dynamics Systems and Controls in the Jacobs School of Engineering, and professor emeritus in 2009. Most recently, Skelton pioneered the mathematical description of tensegrity structures, which combines tension and integrity to describe materials composed of strings and rods. Skelton became a member of NAE in 2012.
Dr. Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe
Rodriguez-Iturbe is a Distinguished University Professor and Distinguished TEES Research Professor in the Department of Ocean Engineering. Rodriguez-Iturbe also holds a joint appointment in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering. He came to Texas A&M from Princeton University where he was the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Rodriguez-Iturbe had a previous stint at Texas A&M from 1993 to 1999 when he was a Distinguished Professor, holder of the R.P. Gregory Chair Professor and head of the civil engineering department. His research interests include coastal ecosystems; hydrogeomorphology; ecohydrology; river basin functioning and organization; and stochastic modeling of natural phenomena. Rodriguez-Iturbe became a member of NAE in 1988.
Dr. Thomas J. Overbye
Overbye will join the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M as a TEES Distinguished Research Professor. Overbye is currently the Fox Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where he has been since 1991. Prior to joining UIUC, he was employed with Madison Gas and Electric Company from 1983 to 1991. He served on the U.S. DOE Power Outage Study Team in 1999 and helped with its National Transmission Grid study in 2002. Overbye is the original developer of PowerWorld Simulator, an innovative, widely used software package for power system analysis and visualization, and a co-founder of PowerWorld Corporation. His research interests are in the domains of smart grid cyber security, renewable electric energy systems, power system visualization, power system analysis by computer methods, power system stability and power systems operation and control. Overbye became a member of NAE in 2013.
Dr. George M. Pharr
Pharr will join the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Pharr is currently the Chancellor’s Professor and McKamey Professor of Engineering at the University of Tennessee. He also holds a joint faculty position in the materials science and technology division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Pharr’s research interests include nanoindentation and nanomechanical testing; thin film and small-scale mechanical behavior; mechanisms of fracture and flow in solids; and finite element modeling of indentation contact. He will teach at both the graduate and undergraduate levels on nanomaterials and properties of materials. Pharr became a member of NAE in 2014.