BLACKSBURG, Va., Nov. 16, 2005 – Andrew Kurdila, a professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been named the W. Martin Johnson Professor of Mechanical Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors at its quarterly meeting, Nov 7. The professorship was established in 1983 through the gift of the late W. Martin Johnson.
Kurdila joined the Virginia Tech faculty earlier this year. He is renowned for his work in the field of dynamical systems theory, control theory and computational mechanics. His research has been supported by the NASA Langley Research Center, NASA Dryden Flight Center, Eglin Air Force Base, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Naval Research Laboratory, Office of Naval Research, Army Research Office and Air Force Research Laboratory. He is the author of more than 50 journal publications, 100 conference presentations and publications, and four book chapters.
Kurdila is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and American Society for Engineering Education. He received his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech.
The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college’s 5,500 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a “hands-on, minds-on” approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 1,800 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.
Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities, and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg, and other campus centers in northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.