This spring, the Department of Multidisciplinary Engineering will welcome Dr. George Ligler as a tenured professor and Dean’s Excellence Chair. Prior to joining Texas A&M University, Ligler served as the Dean’s Eminent Professor of the Practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s joint Department of Biomedical Engineering while continuing his 32-year consultancy in interdisciplinary systems engineering.
Ligler has been a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) since 2017 and is the past chair of NAE Section 12, special fields and interdisciplinary engineering. Throughout his career, he has contributed to nine national academy committees (chairing two) in advising the Departments of Treasury, Commerce and Transportation. Currently, he is a member of the Academies’ Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board.
After studying at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Ligler had initial industrial positions as a project manager, research manager, director of engineering, general manager, and division and group vice president within various multidisciplinary engineering corporations.
“I decided that I needed to change my career path and do what I enjoyed most,” said Ligler. “I enjoyed customers, but my roots were in system engineering. So, I opened up a system engineering consultancy and I’ve done that for the last 32 years. We have a total of 40 clients on three continents.”
Considered a subject matter expert in aircraft communications, navigation and surveillance, Ligler has been supporting several clients in aviation, including the Federal Aviation Administration, since the 1990s. He helped lead the specification and development of both satellite-based navigation and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast initiatives as components of the ongoing modernization of the United States’ national airspace system. Ligler has received RTCA’s (an aviation standards development organization) highest award, the achievement award, twice for his contributions to satellite-based navigation and surveillance system initiatives and the development of standards for unmanned aircraft systems.
Ligler’s wife, Dr. Frances Ligler, will be joining the College of Engineering this spring as a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.