Professor Ellen Arruda and Noboru Kikuchi, the Roger L. McCarthy Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, have been elected members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Election to National Academy of Engineering membership is one of the highest professional honors accorded an engineer. Members have distinguished themselves in business or academic management, in technical positions, as university faculty, or as leaders in government or private engineering organizations. Only 2,530 individuals worldwide are NAE members, including 106 in this year’s class.
A professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Macromolecular Science and Engineering, Professor Ellen Arruda was cited for “pioneering research in polymer and tissue mechanics and their application in innovative commercial products.” She joined the College’s faculty as an assistant professor in 1992. She earned her bachelor’s degree (with Honors) and master’s degree both from Penn State, and her Ph.D. from MIT.
Professor Arruda teaches and conducts research in the areas of theoretical and experimental mechanics of macromolecular materials, including polymers, elastomers, composites, soft tissues and proteins, and in tissue engineering of soft tissues and tissue interfaces.
Her research programs include the experimental characterization, and analytical and computational modeling of soft materials, including native and engineered tissues. Her distinctions include the 2012 Excellence in Research Award by the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, and the cover article in Tissue Engineering, in January of 2012. She holds three patents for this work. She is president and a fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics and a fellow and former president of the Society of Engineering Science.
Dr. Noboru Kikuchi, president and chief operating officer, Toyota Central R&D Labs Inc., Aichi, Japan, and Roger L. McCarthy Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, was credited for “contributions to theory and methods of computer-aided engineering and leadership in their applications in the automotive industry worldwide.” He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. He served on the College’s faculty from 1980-2015.
Professor Kikuchi is a world renowned scholar in adaptive finite element methods including automatic mesh generation and remeshing schemes for nonlinear problems in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics.
His research achievements include the development of micromechanical models for unilateral contact friction of metal and sheet-metal forming processes, topology optimization for material microstructures, and homogenization method in mechanics of composites. He developed the image based CAE methodology and the First Order Analysis Method for CAE of automotive body structures. Professor Kikuchi has an exceptional publication record with over 10,000 total citations. His work has made significant impacts on both fundamental knowledge and practical technology.