Professor Noboru Kikuchi has been appointed the Roger L. McCarthy Professor of Mechanical Engineering. This new professorship was endowed by Roger L. McCarthy (BSE ME '72), chairman of Exponent, Inc., in Menlo Park, California.
Kikuchi's appointment to the McCarthy Professorship recognizes his significant contributions, tireless efforts and quartercentury of service to the ME department and to the field of computational mechanics. He is renown internationally and serves as chair of the Board of Directors for the Japan Association for Nonlinear Computer Aided Engineering, director of Toyota Central R&D Laboratory and associate technical advisor of the Production Division of Toyota Motor Corporation. He is a Fellow of the International Association for Computational Mechanics and has earned numerous awards, including the Henry Russel Award from the University, the Outstanding Teaching Award and Outstanding Research Award from the ME department and the Distinguished Research and Distinguished Service Awards from the College.
Currently Kikuchi is working to establish a robust method for validation and verification of mechanical computer aided engineering (CAE) software for structural components and systems design in order to assure quality of computer simulation. His other research projects include development of a new shell finite element for automotive body structures, especially for NVR study in automotive engineering and development of new computational methods to calculate eigenvalues/eigenvectors for super-large scale problems with more than 10 million degrees of freedom. He is also investigating a new size and shape design optimization method based on the inverse Shur decomposition of a matrix and an image-based CAE method with X-ray CT scanning technology.
Of his appointment, Kikuchi said he is "honored to know that my activity in academia and industry was recognized for a professorship endowed by Dr. Roger L. McCarthy, since he is so well-known to us for his outstanding achievement. His success in industry and his contributions to the University community are inspiring. I believe this professorship calls for extraordinary activity to build a real bridge between academia and industry, and I'm looking forward to working toward that goal."
McCarthy has been a long-time supporter of the ME department and has served on the External Advisory Board since 1996. He endowed the Roger L. McCarthy professorship to support the teaching and scholarship of a distinguished faculty member in Mechanical Engineering.
McCarthy has a long list of professional accomplishments to his name, the most recent of which is his appointment to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The NAE recognized McCarthy for "major contributions to improved vehicle safety and for methods of quantitative assessment of the reliability of complex mechanical systems."
Before becoming chairman of Exponent Inc., McCarthy served as president and chief executive officer of the company, the country's largest engineering firm dedicated primarily to the prevention and analysis of engineering and scientific failures. He was awarded the U.S. Army's Gold Outstanding Civilian Service Medal and has served on the President's Committee on the National Medal of Science. He has also received the ME Alumni Society Merit Award. McCarthy earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy and another in mechanical engineering from U-M in 1972. He earned master's, professional and doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.