Four faculty members from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University have been named recipients of the 2016-17 College of Engineering Faculty Awards.
M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) recently announced the recipients who will be formally recognized at the Faculty and Staff Awards Banquet in May.
Dr. Amine Benzerga, professor and director of the Center for Intelligent Materials and Structures (CiMMS), has been named a William O. and Montine P. Head Fellow. Benzerga’s research concerns the deformation and fracture behavior of advanced materials, including metallic alloys, polymer composites and architectured materials. This approach involves integrating experiments with physics-based modeling and computation from atomic to macroscopic scales. Benzerga also serves as Co-PI on the NSF-sponsored International Materials Institute (IMI) known as the “International Institute for Multifunctional Materials for Energy Conversion.”
Dr. Moble Benedict, assistant professor, will receive the Dean of Engineering Excellence Award – Assistant Professor Level. Benedict joined the department in 2014. He received his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in 2010 from the University of Maryland and his Bachelor and Masters of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. His areas of expertise are in design, development and autonomous control of high performance next generation aircraft at small (MAVs/UAVs) and full scales, energy efficient green aviation, and high efficiency vertical axis wind turbines.
Dr. Gregory Chamitoff, professor of practice and former astronaut, will receive the Instructional Faculty Teaching Award. Chamitoff joined Mission Operations at the NASA Johnson Space Center in 1995 and was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1998. In 2008, Chamitoff served as the flight engineer and science officer for a 6-month mission aboard the International Space Station. In 2011, he served as a mission specialist on the last flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour. Chamitoff also performed two spacewalks and has logged more than 198 days in space.
Dr. Helen Reed, professor, will receive the TEES Faculty Fellow Award. She has received numerous professional awards and honors, including being named a Fellow of the AIAA, the American Physical Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). She received the Atwood Award from the American Society for Engineering Education and AIAA, the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award from the State of Texas, and was inducted into the Academy of Engineering Excellence and the Committee of 100 in the college of engineering at Virginia Tech, as well as receiving the Kate Gleason Award from ASME. In 2013 she was named a Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence (in perpetuity) as well as a Regents Professor (in perpetuity), and in 2014 she was awarded the Texas A&M Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching at the University level and was named holder of the Edward “Pete” Aldridge ’60 Professorship.