Dean Steve Director’s recently announced the appointment of Professor Christophe Pierre as Stephen P. Timoshenko Collegiate Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Christophe graduated from the Ecole Centrale de Paris in 1982 and went on to earn a M.S. from Princeton University in 1984 and a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1985. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1985 as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and to professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1997. Christophe currently serves as Associate Director of the Automotive Research Center. His research interests include vibrations, structural dynamics and non-linear dynamics and he is most recognized for pioneering research work on mode localization in disordered periodic structures. He has extensively applied his theoretical findings to the study of mistuned and dry-friction damped bladed disks in the turbomachinery industry. Christophe has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including those for outstanding teaching, research excellence and faculty service. He has published extensively, given numerous invited lectures internationally and is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Stephen P. Timoshenko (1878-1972) was a professor of Engineering Mechanics at the University of Michigan for ten years, from 1927 to 1936 (the Engineering Mechanics Department was then renamed Applied Mechanics, which was subsequently merged with Mechanical Engineering). He is generally regarded as the father of engineering mechanics, a field that has since provided a rigorous foundation for most areas of modern mechanical engineering. Timoshenko not only made numerous research contributions to engineering mechanics while at Michigan, but he is also credited for revolutionizing the teaching of mechanics.